#I SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO READ WAR STORIES. THEY ALWAYS DESTROY ME EMOTIONALLY | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shine-no-hitokiri · 4 years ago

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This post is going to be fandom-critical and Loki series-appreciative, so get out and block/unfollow/whatever while you can if that's not your cup of tea.

There is a trend in many fandoms of characters who are in opposition to the hero (villains, antiheroes etc) that is critical of the "redemption through death" scenario. The latest that comes to mind is Star Wars, but there are countless examples. The typical in-story narrative is that the villain had committed too many crimes and there is no place for him in the new world where the heroes won, so he's killed off - usually not by heroes but by tragic circumstances that allow him some positive light before the end (Loki in Thor2, Ben Solo in SW). Fans of the character argue that a fully realised, slow redemption would be an awesome storyline, and that it'd be both interesting and refreshing to look at the life post wrongdoing.

So far, no mainstream media has ever done a fully realised, psychologically grounded redemption storyline. Hollywood go-to idea to rehabilitate the villain is to make the villain useful to the heroes and ultimately just "forget" about the initial transgression. The initial bad deed is never looked back on, addressed or analysed except maybe as a funny oneliner. Because addressing shit is hard... And also because, as Loki series has shown us, the fandom doesn't really want to see the true psychologically grounded redemption storyline.

For the Loki series is exactly this: the first time a character must face uncomfortable truths about themselves, to better themselves. This is a process that isn't nice. It's a beatdown after a beatdown. It's humiliating, soul-destroying, there is much kneeling and grovelling and unflattering names. The character isn't shown as pretty and composed, he isn't allowed to wear nice clothes that give him a feeling of power. He feels useless, powerless and messes up a lot, for his self esteem is gone. He doesn't strut around showing off magic feats and yes, almost everyone around him is shown in better light. Because that's what a true redemption storyline is like. It's a deconstruction of the ego. Eventually, it will lead to a stronger and better sense of self, but first we must crawl on the floor. And the fans, who usually overidentify with the character and his background, just cannot take seeing him, and by extension themselves, in that light.

So what does the fandom do?

1) Insist that Loki does not need a redemption storyline. Because he was tortured by Thanos (this is fanon), because he was influenced by scepter (this is still mostly fanon but has a bit more substance), because he was emotionally abused by Odin (this is almost canon). Now before you crucify me - these are my favourite fanons, my go-to fanfiction, I adore them all. But. There is absolutely nothing incorrect or malicious with the Loki series going "You know what? Loki still carved out that eyeball, and I am not going to sit here and "address" the fact that Odin emotionally neglected him, because that's already been shown and is in the past. I am going to postulate that Loki, deep in his core, is ashamed of himself for his deeds, and that bringing up Odin isn't going to solve that shame, and explore how Loki can move forward from there. The story isn't not going to be about Odin or Thanos, who are both gone and dead, it's going to be about Loki -who is the one who gets to live with the consequences."

2) Insist that the series hates Loki and was written specifically to humiliate him. This ties back to my thesis that the fandom simply does not want to see what a true psychological work of a redemption storyline looks like, for the ego beatdown is the essential part of it. This is how the story of Ben Solo would have had to look like, had he survived Star Wars. This is how Thor 2 would have looked like, had we been following Loki and not Thor: Loki being chained by the same soldiers he commanded, being stripped of his armour, being led down the rainbow bridge and into the palace. In that movie, it would have been worse because he had personal history with all these people. In the series he gets TVA's indifferent approach, which should incidentally be easier to swallow.

3) Insist that Loki is not the protagonist of his own series. Apart from this not making an ounce of sense, this reading comes from the idea that only physical deeds are valid storytelling material. Sylvie is stronger than Loki, hence she's the protagonist. Mobius is in the position of power, hence he is more important than Loki. All the while Loki is out there, doing enormous self-work, changing by the hour and showcasing more stable coping techniques. But he's not glamorous while doing it and he's kneeling a lot, so it cannot be that the writers actually like him and wish him to do well in the long run.

4) Insist that the new Loki is OOC and give him a plain, insulting new nickname to differentiate him from the beloved and cool old Loki. The one who liberated eyeballs while clad in impeccable clothes because he was terrified of Thanos. Or the one whose non-existent coping mechanisms almost made him kill his own beloved brother in despair. The one who had plans upon plans and was always so ready for betrayal that he had no friends on his own. The one who would surely glamour awesome clothes onto himself to avoid signalling any weakness. The one who was incredibly high strung and could never allow any weakness. You guys want that Loki back? Ok, that's fair. That guy was deeply damaged, and very interesting to watch. But then, a story that takes these aspects from him (and make no mistake, all of them are maladaptive and trauma induced - all -of - them) isn't hating on Loki, or making him dumb, or exists to hurt you personally. It allows him to overcome his internal hurdles, lower his defences and eventually arrive to a better place.

So here I rest my thesis: actual well written redemption stories, of which Loki is the frigging first (and how groundbreaking is that) aren't really wanted by the fandom. Most fans would rather whitewash or cocoon themselves in the trauma aspect, leaving the actual responsibility and consequences out of it. Which is fine as a comping mechanism, fiction is escapism after all, you're all perfectly valid... But there should at least be enough self-awareness to differentiate between a good story that's uncomfortable/too heavy for you and a bad story with evil writers who either have no idea about Loki or specifically want to punish his fans.

The Loki series isn't the latter. It might not be the fantasy escapism most would have preferred, but it has a very specific and respectable goal and it's going about it in a grounded way which is - actually - fully respecting of Loki as a person. I swear that the series sees him as more capable of doing the work he needs to do than his own fans.

#loki series #meta #loki #fandom criticism

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surfalldaybaby · 5 years ago

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”A Very Long and Comprehensive Analysis of Feyre’s Experience w/ Trauma and Abuse

- This is not a kind analysis of Nesta but please still read it if you want. It’s not in the wrong tags tho so please don’t rant about how much you love Nesta. I love that for you. Personally, I hate her. :)

Also- I use many of the quotes that @feysandlover and @dont-rattle-aelin used to prove her point that Nesta is abusive because she pulled many of the really jarring ones.

I was looking through the Rhysand tag and for some reason someone posted something comparing Nesta and Feyre in terms of their trauma, and they said that Nesta had experienced way more trauma than Feyre and I-

That’s disgusting.

First - don’t compare trauma

Second- they were wrong and lacked critical thinking skills that left out Feyre’s full experience with abuse

Nesta was sexually assaulted ( which nobody talks about enough) and her family’s fortune flipped making them poor overnight. Because of this she fostered anger towards her father. I get that. I sympathize with that. She is then taken away from her life and forcefully changed into fae. I cannot imagine what that felt like for her. It must have been devastating. Her whole identity was shifted in one day and she went from hating fae to being fae. Confusing and overwhelming. She then goes into war and develops PTSD and depression from her experiences. She sees her father die and is unable to reconcile her anger and his death. It’s horrible and I cannot even begin to understand the depth of her emotions here. I have zero issue saying that about Nesta because it’s true she has gone through extaordinary trauma and I cannot imagine how she fully feels. She deals with this trauma in unhealthy ways because they only exacerbate her feelings of worthlessness. Not her fault. However, she also treats Mor and Feyre and Rhys in disrespectful ways and Cassian and her have an unhealthy dynamic where they insult each other. Her and Amren have a shaky and partner like relationship but it is by no means a sturdy one. Az and Nesta don’t seem to have a relationship at all. She has no true healthy relationship with anyone but Elain, and you could argue even that is not truly healthy.

Much of Nesta’s trauma is due to extraneous factors and a multitude or variables. It’s valid and it matters just as much as Feyres. They are both real. However the amount of traumatic experiences she has gone through does not come close to rivaling that of Feyre’s and to even try and compare them is disgusting. Trauma should never be compared but I want to show Feyre’s experience in a broader light to show her development from a scared girl to high lady

Feyre was never an active abuser in any relationship she was always the one being abused. Nesta was abused and she was also the abuser. It is important to point that out because it heavily impacts Feyre’s story.

Also, I believe the reason Feyre became so accustomed and slipped so easily into being a victim to Tamlins abuse is because Feyre was already the victim of emotional abuse from her sisters. We see this everyday, research shows that victims of abuse go back to abusive relationship and form new relationships that center around abuse because they are used to it and find it comforting. This is an extraneous point that you can agree with or can argue against it’s just a personal connection I made. However, it is very evident how Nesta and Elains treatment of Feyre affects her. She has no self confidence, she remains illiterate and with no real knowledge of polite manners ( something important in the real world, something that holds her back from being able to assimilate into the real world), her spirit is broken down at home because she knows that verbal attacks are going to come and Nesta is going to lash out and say horrible disgusting things to her if she asks her to do something or holds her accountable for her lack of work. She is constantly degraded for everything that she does and it has a pronoucned effect on her psyche throughout the trilogy and novella.

Like Nesta, Feyre also had to go through her family losing their fortune, she also had to bear the weight of her promise to her mother, she had to support her sisters financially going into the forest alone to hunt animals just as big as herself at 14. She never had money for herself because her sisters took it from her. Like they literally took all her money to buy things they did not need, leaving Feyre with basically nothing.

“I’d love a new cloak,” Elain said at last with a sigh, at the same moment Nesta rose and declared: “I need a new pair of boots.””“I kept quiet, knowing better than to get in the middle of one of their arguments, but I glanced at Nesta’s still-shiny pair by the door. Beside hers, my too-small boots were falling apart at the seams, held together only by fraying laces... I drowned them out as they began quarreling over who would get the money the hide would fetch tomorrow…”

And Nesta complains and whines and doesn’t stop gaslighting Feyre because of her lack of hard work. But, she doesn’t want to do work herself because she thinks it’s beneath her.

“I thought you were going to chop wood today. Nesta picked at her long, neat nails. “I hate chopping wood. I always get splinters. She glanced up from beneath her dark lashes. Of all of us, Nesta looked the most like our mother—especially when she wanted something. “Besides, Feyre,” she said with a pout, “you’re so much better at it! It takes you half the time it takes me. Your hands are suited for it—they’re already so rough.” My jaw clenched. “Please,” I asked, calming my breathing, knowing an argument was the last thing I needed or wanted. “Please get up at dawn to chop that wood.” I unbuttoned the top of my tunic. “Or we’ll be eating a cold breakfast.” Her brows narrowed. “I will do no such thing!”

She doesn’t care about Feyre or the fact that starving is their new reality. Poverty is what they live in. We all know if Feyre didn’t go hunting Nesta would be furious at Feyre and belittle her and make her feel small and responsible for their hunger.

“Take those disgusting clothes off.”

“Any bit of praise for anyone—me, Elain, other villagers—usually resulted in her dismissal.”

“Is there a problem, Feyre?” She flung my name like an insult, and my jaw ached from clenching it so hard.”

“You stink like a pig covered in its own filth. Can’t you at least try to pretend that you’re not an ignorant peasant?”c“Take those disgusting clothes off.”

“What do you know?” Nesta breathed. “You’re just a half-wild beast with the nerve to bark orders at all hours of the day and night. Keep it up, and someday—someday, Feyre, you’ll have no one left to remember you, or to care that you ever existed.” She stormed off, Elain darting after her, cooing her sympathy.

Then Tamlim comes and kidnaps her. More trauma. She falls in love with him, I think partly because of Stockholm Syndrome and also because he shows her a level of kindness that she was not given at home, and then he disappears so she has to go back to her life with her sisters. Her sisters have all the benefits of her being stolen away bcs Feyre was able to provide their old house and wealth back through Tamlin’s gift. Her sisters literally never did anything to provide for themselves or help their father or sister. If you really think about that situation as a whole it’s devastating. Then she goes to save Tamlin and finds that her home and her loved one was basically destroyed. She goes to save him.

While under the mountain Amarantha humiliates and tortures her for fun. She makes her run around trying to get away from a monster, her illiteracy is exploited for amusement while she is under pressure of death by fire, she is forced to kill fae in order to save her love, and she has to suffer with her injuries in a basement where everyone is rooting against her.

Then she fucking dies. And like Nesta she is forced to become fae in order to survive. Like she can’t catch a break. Her whole life has really just been horrible and so traumatic. A series of abuses.

That’s not even all! She goes home and is deeply depressed and struggling with PTSD and Tamlin, who she literally was tortured and died to save, takes advantage of her sexually because he is too scared to acknowledge that she is struggling. He uses her body for his pleasure while she throws up every night after he leaves her bedroom due to the nightmares she gets from saving hundreds of fae. She is also forced to fit into a box that she doesn’t want- wearing dresses, pretending to be happy, becoming a figurehead as Tamlins bride knowing that it means she will have to be submissive and have children. Lucien emotionally abused her and ignores her obvious depression because of his own fear of what Tamlin would say. He is a bystander. She is so broken that she stops caring about everything, even painting, the one thing she always loved. Then he traps her in his house which is traumatizing again because she was just trapped under the mountain! Even the people she loved, the people she trusted, continually can’t stop abusing her.

She finds happiness and stability later on after intensive work on herself, and months of building healthy relationships, but she is still troubled because of the guilt she feels from the townsfolks anger and their sense of righteousness for her actions even though she did the best she could in every circumstance. When she goes to try and save those townspeople it becomes clear that Nesta still hates her. She shows Feyre no kindness. The only reason she is allowed to use the house, the one that Feyre got for them, was because of Elain. Even after that Nesta insults her repeatedly for being fae. Those statments from the first book that I quoted higher up in this post are just a small part of how she speaks to Feyre in the following three books after she finds out that she is fae. Even after Feyre saves her and supports her she continues abusing and blaming Feyre. She continues to insult. degrade, shame, and humiliate her to uplift her own lack of self worth. Its a technique to stop her own insecurity and depression but it is in no way excusable. It’s no wonder Rhysand hates her. She abused his mate for years- something that he experienced under the mountain (shame, gaslighting, and humiliation). That is her life. She goes on to see her father murdered. She suffered so much in such a short amount of time is a wonder she wasn’t more broken.

Don’t come to me saying Nesta experienced more trauma to prove your point that Nesta is a good person and not responsible for her actions because she “feels to much” and is a woman that is cruel, and prideful, and unapologetic “bcs that’s who she is.” She has to be held accountable for her actions, her attitude, and her lack of words and apologies to everyone she wronged- especially her sister.

Feyre sacrifices her childhood, her body, her mental health, and her life in order to provide the stability that her sisters felt was their norm. They are inherently priviledged because of that sacrifice. They felt and still feel entitled to her money, and her loyalty, and that of her friends and mate. They survive because of Feyre. And Feyre never once called them out on their behavior, not even when they continually disrespected her after she provided them with a place to live and money to live off of. This was due to her feelings of guilt and the trauma that she had continually been victim to as a child and in Tamlins court.

Some of y’all use the excuse that they never asked Feyre to do any of that and I’m genuinely appalled that that is even a response to her genuine sacrifice. Her mother asked her to take care of them. Nobody was stepping up. Nesta was not going to go into the forest and neither was Elain, both for different but equally disappointing reasons. They both would have let the family starve. Also, Nesta and Elain were both older than her. Elain and Nesta as Feyre’s old sisters should have, and had a responsibility, to ensure that Feyre didn’t have to do what she did. Their apathy and ungrateful attitude is disgusting. Disgusting and unforgivable. Sure, Feyre may have been able to do it but she never should have had to. The three of them should have figured out a plan of equal work to give and take and survive. Y’all saying that Feyre never had to do that I- ... do you not have a family? Do you not have loved ones? You don’t have to do something to help your family, but you do it anyway because you love them and you hate to see them suffer. It’s just that usually you aren’t being exploited and taken advantage of at 14, for years on end, because the sentiment is usually reciprocated.

Perhaps if they had taken better care of their younger sister she would not have been in the woods and killed the fae. Perhaps all three of them would have bore the brunt of their fathers injury together and made a family. Perhaps if she hadn’t killed the fae in the forest when she was starving due to her sisters laziness, Elain and Nesta would never have been forced into being fae.

They neglected Feyre. They aren’t as responsible for her as their father ofc but they actively neglected her and Nesta even slut shamed her for her consensual sexual relationship with Isaac. The one thing she had that her sisters couldn’t take and Nesta called her filthy and disgusting for it.

“At least I don’t have to resort to rutting in the hay with Isaac Hale like an animal.”

Nesta remains unapologetic and to me she is not a feminist character. Sarah J Mass tried to use her as that trope to fulfill her idea of a “powerful woman” icon but she’s just a cruel and traumatized woman who people let off the hook. She gets away with it because she gaslights other characters while taking no responsibility for herself. She was abused and traumatized herself but that’s never an excuse for her in turn abusing someone else.

Now I don’t mean to say that Nesta or Elain are irredeemable. Frankly I think they both have potential to be good characters if they just apologized to Feyre in the next book, and really put those sentiments into actions. I do think Nesta is a bad person right now, I think she’s an abuser. And I think it’s hard for abusers to change their pattern of abuse. Elain is less of an outright abuser and more complicit in the abuse. I don’t know if either of them can change, but they definitely won’t if people keep letting them off the hook for their disgusting behavior. I am not impressed or charmed by either of them. Until they show a hint of gratitude and remorse to their sister because as y’all can tell she went through hell to make sure they were taken care of. Not to say that they didn’t do anything for Feyre. They both had important roles to play in the war, and they do have their moments of kindness and bravery and showed they cared for Feyre but abusers can be kind and considerate and brave one minute and then switch up just as fast. It’s about showing a consistent pattern of respect and love.

Just because Feyre took care of Elain and Nesta their whole damn life does not mean she has to be responsible for them as high lady. Also she is not responsible for knowing how to deal with their trauma. Her own abuse, and lack of real world experience- because Nesta and Elain never taught her to read, and Nesta continually degraded and made cruel remarks to Feyre about her lack of manners “ disgusting pig, take off your clothes didn’t anyone teach you ...” (manners she didn’t develop because she was in the forest)- means she is not perfect at confronting Nestas PTSD or depression. Feyre’s intention was always good, whereas you can’t tell me that Nestas was good and pure. She is not exempt from being respectful and kind because she is hurt and has mental illnesses. She is not exempt from apologizing because she “feels to much.”

This applies to all of the IC as well. They are all healing. They all experienced trauma that rivals what Feyre went through. It’s no wonder they built a family from that shared bond. They are healing together- not healed. Nesta is not entitled to Feyre’s care or her friends kindness. She is not entitled to be added into the group painting or their secret jokes or parties because she continues to push them all away. Then she insults them and disrespects them. The inner circle has already suffered so much they are not exactly going to be open to accepting Nesta knowing her history and her current actions and remarks, and the history of the IC. Do y’all not remember Mors family nailing a stake into her body for losing her virginity? Or Cassian, Az, and Rhys being forced to bond together to survive, being called bastards, and being ganged up on by all their peers? Rhys being sexually abused for 50 years and seeing his parents murdered? Az being stuck in a basement so long he became the shadows and his hands being burned so badly they were hard to look at? Or Amren being in the wrong body for centuries and still she and all of the IC remain a family because they try to understand each other and their experiences. Nesta was not only rude to them she was cruel and spiteful, especially to their high lady, and they don’t need an excuse, but especially as victims of abuse, they are not perfect, and they sure as hell are not obligated to embrace Nesta into their family. The IC and Feyre deserve better.

A lot of people have posed the argument that if Nesta was male everyone would love her but I disagree. If an older brother let his sister go hunting alone in the woods for years while sitting on his ass, slut shamed her and called her dirty and disgusting, blamed her for her family’s poverty and spoke to her like she was trash for years and years, verbally and emotionally belittled her, felt entitled to her possessions and her kindness while they were both struggling to heal from abuse, predisposes his sister to accepting abuse as a form of relationship, and then rather than apologize “steels [her] back” and says nothing-not even an apology or a thank you for saving their life tenfold- he would never even have gotten a redemption story, or a mate, let alone a 700 page book. He would be the most hated character in the series but because it’s Nesta and she’s a woman and y’all pose her as this feminist it’s okay that shes abusive all throughout the series.

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jasperwhitcock · 4 years ago

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wait.. hold awn... your edward POV is so good??!! i honestly prefer your edward pov than stephenie's because you make his angst/humor not sound cringy at all, your also very descriptive and you make it sound so beautiful!! can you please write another edward POV, it can be about whatever you want!! whats on his mind?

thank you very much! ♡ also, i thought it’d be fun or interesting to tackle the scene in new moon where he leaves from edward’s perspective. spoiler: it was not fun. two or three days and 15 pages later, and guess what? i am sad <3

anyways, we’ll see how you feel about the cringiness of my edward’s angst now hehe.

warnings: midnight sun spoilers, mentions of depression, implications of suicide.

“For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.”

–– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism.

"Come for a walk with me," I suggested, working to keep my voice unemotional and detached. Ever since Bella’d entered my life, I’d exerted so much energy into control. Controlling my dangerous impulses, both the bloodlust and the lust of desire. It’d been scarcely manageable, just enough so that I myself didn’t pose any substantial threats to the warm, trusting girl before me, though not without great effort. Of course, despite these efforts, my presence still constituted a great risk on her life, but that wouldn’t be an issue much longer. And yet, regardless of all the time I’d invested to mastering and willing my control to be greater than it was, the effort to feign the aloofness I needed now was far more strenuous than anything else I’d ever done.

I reached for Bella’s hand – the last time I’d allow myself to truly hold it within my own. I was excruciatingly reminded of the little restaurant in Port Angeles and the first time I’d allowed her to touch my hand. The pleasure of her summery touch, the way her gentle willingness had softened the stone man that I was. She’d thanked me then, very aware of the number of times our hands had met, and I’d warned her to not try for another. How lucky I’d been to receive so many more of those touches, many more than I ever deserved. Enough for the remainder of my existence, and yet not enough to satisfy me. Certainly not enough to make this last of touches feel right.

The exquisiteness of her tender hand in mine made this more insufferable than I’d anticipated, and I had anticipated this to be unendurable. It trembled slightly in my grasp. Her pulse thudded through my granite skin and up my arm, spreading throughout my body as though I too had a pounding heartbeat that scored my anxiety. How I wished we were truly leaving for a simple walk in the woods where I could hold her hand indefinitely.

A flash of intuition and panic spasmed on her face, and her already rapid heart fluttered, accelerating in alarm. In the genesis of our relationship, I’d wondered whether this reaction had been fear or attraction. Now, after the horrible, manipulative way I’d orchestrated the seeds for this goodbye, I didn’t need to question what it indicated. As always, I wished to console her, to pull her deep into my arms and ensure her everything would be okay.

But it would be wrong of me to do so, though it’d be the truth. Because now, for her, everything would be okay. Better, even. Her life would be critically improved. My inhuman arms could no longer be her safe haven.

Hesitance marked her unsure, clumsy steps as she trailed behind me. I stopped once we were a few steps onto the trail, not deep enough into the forest to lose sight of her quaint two story house or the senile heap of metal that was her truck.

Though it felt incredibly sacrilegious to do so, I released her hand from mine, surrendering to what I knew to be right. I no longer deserved her warmth.

I turned to face her, leaning against a tree indifferently as though I cared little for this conversation. The reality was, of course, the opposite. I coerced my face into an impassive mask, not allowing the absolute torment engulfing me to show in my expression as I studied her face. Even if my memory was infallible, I’d never be able to forget her face, and yet as though I might, I stared deeply at the smooth contours of her wide cheekbones, the point of her chin, the fullness of her pink lips, committing the gentle beauty to memory. Celebrating it. Mourning it. The last time I’d ever see her.

I wished to stay in this moment forever.

"Okay, let's talk," she finally said, taking this moment from me too soon. Her voice took on a note of determination and bravery that I hadn’t expected. I wondered what she’d been thinking the past few days of my abnormal and unacceptably rude frigidity. I convinced myself it’d be better this way, to allow that initial distance to emotionally prepare her for my disappearance from her life. Let her think of the coldness and nothing else. Let her begin to forget the intensity of the love I felt for her.

Let the distance torture me like the masochist I proved to be. There was no way to emotionally prepare myself for the violence of this heartache the way I did for her. It destroyed me to treat her this way. It was as though a knife had been plunged deeply into my impenetrable chest, and with every harsh, apathetic word, every step away from her, it’d been twisted painfully, still nestled within the incurable, hemorrhaging wound. Perhaps there’d be some sick, macabre relief when I finally finished myself off with this most dreaded of conversations.

Yes, I wished to stay in this moment forever. But Bella didn’t have forever.

I sighed heavily, welcoming her enticing scent to wash over me rather than the worst of my afflictions. The way her fragrance triggered my darkest instincts was a reminder of her precious nearness to me and the time limit on that nearness. A reminder of the monster I was. A reminder of why I needed to leave.

"Bella, we're leaving,” I announced, unwillingly beginning to recite the lines of dialogue I’d been rehearsing and wrestling with in my mind ever since the party. Of all our years of deception and mirages, the part I was about to play was my most loathed.

Bella seemed nearly relieved as she sighed in response, and for a moment I considered whether she’d anticipated as much. Perhaps she’d reached the conclusion she should have long ago – that I should be unwelcome in her life. That our leaving was a good thing.

“Why now? Another year—” she began to argue, and I realized she’d misunderstood. Pain rippled through me, but I’d prepared for this question.

“Bella, it's time,” I stated with finality, nearly patronizing her like an imbecile. “How much longer could we stay in Forks, after all? Carlisle can barely pass for thirty, and he's claiming thirty-three now. We'd have to start over soon regardless.”

Admittedly, this wasn’t entirely untrue, and yet it was a lie. Outside of my family, Bella was the only person I’d ever desperately wanted to sincerely know me and expose every truth of myself to. And now, she was the recipient of all of my lies and dishonesty. Deception, again.

Bella’s forehead puckered as she contemplated my words. Once more, I longed to smooth the wrinkle between her eyebrows, to brush my fingers along her cheek… It took everything within me to hold onto the impassivity of my cold expression.

Suddenly, Bella’s beautiful cream skin became colored in a green-tinged white as awareness began to sink in. The chalkiness was so close to the tragedy of Alice’s vision of Bella with lifeless, red eyes that I warred against. The thought of this future empowered me with the reminder this was indeed the right thing. Her heart picked up yet again, and she swayed off-balance, but I remained frozen in place.

“When you say we—,” her voice came out quietly in a demoralized whisper.

“I mean my family and myself,” I miserably clarified to ensure that she understood completely what would become of her future, and how it’d no longer be intertwined with my own.

She shook her head back and forth, stunned. It was minutes before she spoke again, and I found myself desperate for more time as she processed this. Even as torturous as this was, I wished to stay in this moment and bask in her confusion. How many times had I longed to read her mind? It was nothing compared to the curiosity that agonized me now. But I could do nothing to satiate that curiosity. I could give her no indication that I concerned or longed for her thoughts.

“Okay,” she finally said stubbornly, still in denial. “I'll come with you.”

“You can't, Bella,” I disagreed. I’d prepared for her obstinance, for the argument. “Where we're going…” I used the plural, though I had no intention of being surrounded by anyone or anything but my own despairing thoughts. “It’s not the right place for you.” This much was true again. Hell was no place for the springtime that was Bella Swan.

“Where you are is the right place for me,” she protested.

She was entirely wrong, but the opposite was unquestionable. Where she was was the right place for me. But for her life and the value it had to my pathetic, limitless existence, it was the right wrong place for me to be.

“I'm no good for you, Bella.” In the midst of all my dishonesty, I could share with her this certainty.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she whimpered. “You're the very best part of my life.”

When considering if someone as perfect as Bella could see someone like me as worthy of love, I’d once wondered if a dead, frozen heart could break. When Bella’s life was endangered by a vicious hunter so shortly after I’d introduced her to my own world, I’d wondered the same thing. When Bella lay broken and beaten in a hospital as I watched the videotape that had captured the brutality of the torture she’d endured because of my irresponsibility, the same question haunted me. And now, as she cried out these words, I had my answer. It absolutely and irreversibly could.

I’d rushed into love foolishly, selfishly. And Bella had paid the price for my sins.

In that same chapel where I relived Bella’s torture, I’d prayed desperately, ferociously, agonizingly. Had I been human perhaps I’d have cried and sweat drops of blood like Jesus had in the garden of Gethsemane before his crucification. But maybe after all, my strength came from no god, no higher, benevolent power, but from the gentle fragility of this human girl whom I loved so much.

“My world is not for you,” I admitted, both to her and to myself, unable to keep the depression from bleeding into my tone. My face felt harder, colder, darker.

She was impassioned by this admission.

“What happened with Jasper—that was nothing, Edward! Nothing!” The words clumsily burst out of her as incredulity and hopelessness began to pump the adrenaline in her precious veins. Although it wounded me, I took no surprise to how easily she brushed aside the threats to her life.

“You're right,” I agreed bitterly. “It was exactly what was to be expected.”

She seemed to sense the thread that tied her to me weakening. As always, she knew exactly how to pierce through me, shouting the exact words that would break me.

“You promised!” She accused, nearly begging. “In Phoenix, you promised that you would stay—”

I didn’t allow her to see how her words affected me, the heaviness that was strangulating my broken heart.

"As long as that was best for you," I corrected her, reminding her of the importance of that distinction.

“No!” She screamed her refusal. As I suspected, it’d be hours before she allowed me to leave. “This is about my soul, isn't it?" Bella shouted, infuriated.

I’d have froze if I wasn’t already completely still, stunned at this unexpected turn in conversation, shocked at how exactly she’d pinpointed the exact reason I couldn’t keep her with me forever. “Carlisle told me about that, and I don't care, Edward. I don't care! You can have my soul. I don't want it without you—it's yours already!”

Bella was always more well informed than what was good for her. I was already too overcome with more powerful emotions that I didn’t have the capacity to feel angry with Carlisle for sharing this with her. This is what was wrong. Despicable. Unacceptable. I’d inflicted so much damage onto her life already. Her instincts were always horribly, unfathomably wrong. Of course she’d willingly trade her precious, invaluable life for eternal damnation. But her soul wasn’t something she could give me nor something I’d ever take from her. I could never allow that. I took a deep breath, mourning how easily she’d throw her life away for someone like me, the dark affliction on her perfect life. I kept my eyes fixated on the ground as I fought against the soulless, red-eyed depiction of Bella in my head. It was wrong. Selfishness. A tragedy.

I should have anticipated that Bella wouldn’t accept the circumstances of my leaving if they benefited only her. I’d have to make her believe that leaving benefitted me. I’d have to convince her that the unconditional, inextinguishable love I had for her had been fraudulence, a fleeting summer romance I’d outgrown. A random short lived obsession I’d progressed beyond the desire for. I’d have to truly break her. I grimaced, breaking from the mask as my mouth contorted in anguish, but instantaneously I regained my former stoicism so she’d be unable to see the change in expression. Tearless sobs festered below my composure, threatening to surface, but I choked down the pain. Let me suffer later. I had the rest of Bella’s life to agonize over this.

This is where the strength I’d needed would be put to use. I looked up, commanding my eyes to be cruel, empty, lifeless. Willing myself to look at her like I had that first day in biology when I’d despised her for the upheaval she’d inflicted on my life.

“Bella, I don't want you to come with me.” I forced the words out slowly, scathingly, separating them so she would understand. I analyzed her face to ensure she’d grasp the meaning behind them, half hoping she’d immediately detect the blasphemy.

“You... don't... want me?” She sampled out the words, her forehead creasing as she tried to make sense of the absurdity of them. As if I’d ever want anything but her.

“No,” I lied.

She stared into my eyes. The depth of the chocolate brown entrapped me as she struggled for comprehension, searching for meaning as I searched again for strength.

“Well, that changes things,” she finally surrendered, accepting my sacrilege without hesitation.

I was outraged and demoralized by how quickly she’d accepted this contradiction to everything I’d ever led her to believe. How instantly she doubted the intensity, the irrevocability of how absolutely I loved her. Without this love, which was the most defining component of my existence, the foundation of all joy in this non-life of mine, I had nothing to live for. Nothing to hope for. Didn’t she understand that?

Suddenly, I was breaking the rules again. I couldn’t tolerate the idea of completely dismissing the importance of my affection for her, or rather, the importance of her life to mine. Cowardly, I looked away at the trees so that she couldn’t see the emotion in my eyes that would betray the gross understatement of my next words. “Of course, I'll always love you…” I longed to stop there. How true that was. I always would love her. Always, until her last breath. And always, until my own. “…in a way,” I added contemptibly to set myself back on the previous track.

“But what happened the other night made me realize that it's time for a change.” Again, my words were able to take on some authenticity. I’d been dreadfully waiting for the catalyst that’d send me far away from her forever, and it’d been inexcusably irresponsible to allow for another life threatening circumstance to be what reminded me that monsters had no place in her life. “Because I’m…” I hesitated, wanting to make her to understand the reality of why her life would be better without any interference from my own rather than these ridiculous lies. But in making this harder for myself, I could make this break easier for her if I led her to believe differently.

“–tired of pretending to be something I'm not, Bella.” This was laughable fiction. As if I’d ever grow tired of the way she’d made me feel more human than I ever had, eliciting my most unexpected, long buried instincts, making me feel alive. The way the beat of her heart seemed to shake through the earth as though it rocked faintly to the sound of it and through me, too. An electric hum through my body almost like I too had a pulse. The warmth of my own skin as I became immersed in her wonderful heat, and the thrill as her fingertips grazed along my skin, tracing trails of tingling, pleasurable fire. I could bask in these feelings forever and never grow tired.But I was pretending to be something I’m not by allowing myself to act as though I could be a real partner to her. Something I so desperately wished I could be.

“I am not human." I clenched my jaw as I admitted this ugly, loathsome truth. "I've let this go on much too long, and I'm sorry for that.”

There was so much else to be sorry for and allowing myself to impose on her future for these past few months was the shallow tip of the iceberg, but Bella didn’t have the time to listen to my endless list of pathetic, hopeless apologies. Bella didn’t have time at all.

“Don’t,” she whispered in perfect stillness, her quiet voice empty and hopeless. “Don't do this.”

Her pleading ripped through me like the blade again, sawing open the wound. Agony. I reversed the truth, knowing it was the only way to leave her.

“You're not good for me, Bella,” I lied again. This was the worst, the most deranged of the lies I’d told.

Her galloping heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second, skipping in its rhythm as cognizance drained through her. She digested this delusion. She opened her mouth as if to protest, but no sound came out. Selfishly, I wished she would.

She closed it again. I waited the longest moment of my long life.

“If…” she murmured, completely broken, “that’s what you want.”

I couldn’t make myself say the words to convince her further. I simply forced my head to nod once. That was all that I could allow myself.

She stood there, numb and subdued. Her remarkable brown eyes bore into mine.

With great torment, I warred with myself again. Finally, I acquiesced to the last of my self centered acts I’d allow.

“I would like to ask one favor, though, if that's not too much," I said though I deserved nothing from her. She’d already given me more than I deserved. Too much.

I stared at her beautiful face, watching as its exquisite color grew paler, sunless. An echo of the grey, lifeless vision Alice had seen her become in my absence. But she wasn’t like me. She could recover. She could heal. That lifelessness, that emptiness was nothing in comparison to the lifelessness of the paler, colder, stone version of her. Or the emptiness of the ashen, drained, and broken body in my arms. My face broke into a brief expression of mourning, but I composed myself again before she could see the grief.

"Don't do anything reckless or stupid," I demanded severely. This was the most crucial thing I could ask of her now. She stared back at me detached and dispassionate as if she were elsewhere far away from here. As if her life had already gone. I waited for a sign that she comprehended the significance of what I asked of her. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

She nodded weakly.

It seemed as good of a guarantee as I could hope for, though I longed to beg this of her. To fervently beg on my knees by her side that she understand how important, how critical her life was and do nothing to abuse that. How it was the paramount center of my being. But I couldn’t express that. I couldn’t impress upon her what she should have known already.

“I’m thinking of Charlie, of course.” Although this was also a genuine concern of mine, it wasn’t the factor on which I’d based this last imperative request. “He needs you. Take care of yourself—“ I paused, wondering if she could detect the depth of my emotions as they overflowed, heavily affecting the words, “–for him.”

Bella nodded again. “I will,” she whispered, her voice nearly inaudible.

I relaxed only slightly, trusting her sincerity. Bella was far too concerned for others. She felt overly responsible for the lives hers touched. That would be enough to give her the strength to carry forward. She’d never do anything irrational that could hurt Charlie.

“And I'll make you a promise in return," I spoke, dreading the next words, but wanting to present my last gift to her. The last thing I could offer her. “I promise that this will be the last time you'll see me. I won't come back. I won't put you through anything like this again. You can go on with your life without any more interference from me. It will be as if I'd never existed.”

I watched tragically as Bella wobbled in place as though she may lose her balance, her body trembling. Her heartbeat picked up significantly, racing. I ached to reach forward and steady her but couldn’t allow myself this touch.

And though I was drowning, I couldn’t help but nearly bask in this heartbreaking moment. Her suffering was pure excruciation to me, but this reaction was proof that she did love me in some way. A weak, human imitation of the fervency of my feelings for her, but still proof of their relevancy in her life. She believed them to be absolute. So in this pain, I found one minuscule moment of bliss that I could hold onto. Her feelings would change, they would fade, but in this insignificant second of time, they were real to her. I smiled a gentle, sad smile.

“Don't worry,” I comforted her. “You're human—your memory is no more than a sieve. Time heals all wounds for your kind.”

“And your memories?" She asked, nearly choking on the air as she breathed.

“Well,” I hesitated, thinking of all the memories that would haunt me over and over for the rest of my now expiring immortality. Memories irreversibly branded into my mind. The wounds that time would never heal. “I won't forget. But my kind…” my kind, whose perfection cursed us with the flawlessness of an infallible mind as much as we may try to forget. “We’re very easily distracted.”

As if any distractions could keep me from slipping into the misery and depression that awaited me, maliciously beckoning me forward, eager to asphyxiate me in a tailored kind of hell. But this melancholy, for lack of a more severe, accurate word, was a price I was willing to pay for having had Bella in my life at all. I smiled for her, wanting to substantiate the lie that I’d be at peace. That she’d no longer need to worry about me.

I willed myself backwards a step, eager now to cut the thread that connected us so that she may live the life she deserved. The action felt violent like the demon of my oncoming depression had wrenched me back, hungry and impatient to begin the second round of torture. “That’s everything, I suppose. We won't bother you again.”

Her eyes suddenly widened in fear and the realization that this was the end.

“Alice isn't coming back,” she exhaled so quietly that she only mouthed the words.

I shook my head slowly, watching as she absorbed this.

“No,” I confirmed. “They’re all gone. I stayed behind to tell you goodbye.”

“Alice is gone?” She repeated in complete disbelief as though she was only now comprehending the reality of the situation. I thought of Alice’s incredulous betrayal that I’d made her leave Bella this way. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to defend Alice, to make sure Bella knew I was entirely to blame for this abrupt departure. Alice would never forgive me if I didn’t. Though she already would never forgive me now. I almost grimaced thinking of her confidence that this was a ridiculous and cheap attempt to deviate from a future that seemed so inescapable. That in agreeing to this plan – though it wasn’t so much that she agreed, but that she surrendered – she was humoring me, if humoring was even the right word for something so harrowing. This was causing her grief and heartbreak, too.

“She wanted to say goodbye, but I convinced her that a clean break would be better for you.”

Bella swayed as her mind slipped further from me. Her breathing was shallow and abnormal.

“Goodbye, Bella,” I murmured before she could say anything more. Goodbye, my love. My reason for existence.

“Wait!” She choked out the word in panic, stumbling forward with her arms outstretched towards me, her body overcome with tremors.

I reached back for her too, again longing to pull her against me. I’d never wanted anything more. But instead, I locked my hands around her wrists and gently pinned them by her sides. She shouldn’t reach for me any longer.

I couldn’t help myself. Selfishly, I permitted myself once last touch. I leaned down, pressing my lips gently to her forehead, inhaling her wonderful scent, wallowing in the warmth. This one last kiss.

I’d never allow my selfish temptations to hurt Isabella Swan ever again.

“Take care of yourself,” I breathed against her velvety, translucent skin.

Then, I was gone, leaving my broken, dead, frozen heart with her.

Every step away from her was heavier, dragging me down to the fires of torment as though gravity was pressing upon me more densely than ever before. I felt detached from my body as though my skin was violently melting off the granite bones, but I couldn’t find the desire to try and save myself. Bizarrely, simultaneously, I felt weightless as though I were helplessly floating in space with nothing to anchor me, no sense of when I’d be able to return to earth, and I cared little to. I watched as the sun slipped away, and with it, the brilliance of the stars Bella had lit on fire in the sky disappeared, returning me to midnight. I was blinded by the meteor that’d shot across the sky, and in its absence, found myself plunged into darkness. Twilight, again.

#twilight fanfiction #twilight renaissance #midnight sun #the twilight saga #twilight #edward cullen #maybe i will go back and edit this again later but need a break from this DARKNESS #ask #anon

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courtneytarynofficial · 5 years ago

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Hello!! This is my first post for the week, and I’m going to list a few of my favorite writers within the fandom! In this post I’ll name the specific story of theirs that sparked enough interest in my soul to help me discover them, kept me coming back and always looking forward to reading more of their works!

1: LiviJoyann - Neon Groves

I have so many writers I am absolutely head over heels in love with their writing on AO3, but I feel that I owe it to Liv to mention them first on this list, and specifically mention their absolutely stunningly beautiful story Neon Groves. I feel like I need to include a teensy tiny bit of backstory with this one, so here we go: I used to write nearly 10 years ago but stopped suddenly and never returned to it. I discovered TUA and it was instantly love at first viewing, and when I finished watching I knew I had to expand my interest and see if there were any stories written by the absolutely wonderful fans within the fandom. This story was the first one that I discovered and it absolutely BLEW MY MIND it was so phenomenally executed! Her writing, and the story that she builds, and every single detail is so beautifully well done!! While you’re reading along with these characters, it’s like you’re standing beside them within each chapter, creating these friendships, and playing out the “scenes”! The picture she paints is just - WOW!! I truly wish that we caught a glimpse even slightly similar to this in the show! Seriously, if you want to imagine how Klaus and Dave came to be from their first meeting, navigating their time together in a war zone, and eventually get the most detailed insight into how those two dolls fell in love, well, then this is the story for you!!! ADDED BONUS: This is the story that reignited the fire within my own heart and inspired me to pick up writing again after so many years as well! So, thanks Liv! I appreciate you! Thank you for introducing me to the wonderful world of AO3, but especially - thank you for inspiring me to get back into something I’d almost forgotten just how much I love to do!! ❤️❤️

2: Siriuspiggyback - Counting Down The Days To Go

Upon further exploration within AO3, I quickly stumbled upon this story and all I can say is this - It is so beautifully written!!! Every single emotion really struck a chord deep within my heart, and I felt every single emotion so vividly! Every ounce of joy as the family grew to recognize just how deeply they truly loved Klaus, to every heartbreaking ounce of utter despair and sadness as you realized just how quickly they were losing him! (Little warning: this is a terminal illness fic where Klaus has cancer) that being said, I can honestly and truly say that this is the first story that has ever reduced me to a sniveling wreck, a weeping mass of tears, and left me that way for quite some time! This is definitely one of those stories that you will never forget, and whenever you’re in the mood for a good cry, you’ll remember this one and come back to read it again, and absolutely destroy yourself over, and over, and over again! (Or maybe that’s just me?!) Seriously though, this is soooo well done, so emotionally gripping, and just a fantastic story from beginning to end! Could not recommend it any more! But hey, if something that’s definitely on the more sad side of the spectrum isn’t what you’re looking for, I still highly recommend you check this writer out!! Kay has a ton of other amazing stories within this fandom, there’s definitely going to be something that matches your TUA needs, I promise!

3: VeteranKlaus - Soldier Boy AND The Ghost Of Us

Allow me to just say that this creator is absolutely an endless pit of creativity and is constantly adding more absolutely fantastic works into this fandom! Literally, Daniel has over 40 stories and is coming up with new, amazing ideas on the daily (at least it sure seems that way!) I am blown away by the works that he cranks out, EVERY.SINGLE.ONE is so unique, so different than so many other stories I’ve ever read before, and just so sensationally gripping! I am blown away!! Soldier Boy was their first work that I read from him and I’ll be honest, it is a WIP, but I look forward to the day he updates it CONSTANTLY!! I am so in love!! Everything about this story is unique; When I first read this I had never, ever read a story that even slightly mirrored anything similar to this one (SPOILER ALERT: Klaus returning home from the war differently after sustaining a dramatic injury) every single bit of detail, every single insight into Klaus’s emotional state of mind, his physical state of being and his new struggles as he’s still very freshly coping with this injury, as well as losing his love and returning home and just—good lord, I could rave about it for days! It’s so well executed and just—wow! So freaking good! Now, as I said it is a WIP so it is not complete, but I was instantly hooked on this writer and so I explored more of his works (this channel is definitely angst centric as a fair warning, but if you’re anything like me and live for that kind of content then literally, every single one of his are absolutely amazing, again, you’re definitely going to find something you like here!) NEXT I read The Ghost of us and HOLY COW!!! I have never, ever seen a spin on Klaus’s time travel as I have with this story! I would say spoiler alert, but as soon as you read the description you’ll know exactly what the story is about and MAN it does not disappoint!!! Instead of traveling to 1968 Vietnam, Klaus lands in 1940’s Berlin. Let me just say that this story is absolutely mind blowing, it’s amazing, it’s heartbreaking and I cannot even form into words all of the wonderful things I can say about it! Just take my advice and go read it! (And yes, Dave is still in it!!!) haha

4: ObliqueOptimism - Those Days Are Gone, And My Heart Is Full

I’ll just say this; just like the writer’s I’ve listed above, Sara is also PROLIFIC and has over SIXTY WORKS for TUA, what?! And I swear, I think I’ve read every single one of them! Each story is so absolutely amazing in their own way! These stories also range from absolutely full of emotions, to the fluffy sweet tender side of the spectrum, so they definitely have a story somewhere within this vast, beautiful collection for you! I can’t remember which story was the first one I read from them, so I’ve included my absolute favorite!! This story, this story right here is the first Parent!Klaus fic I have ever read! They did such a gorgeous job at detailing Klaus’s journey as a daddy and raising his beautiful baby Jackson! This story has joy, sad moments, beautifully tender moments between a father and son and just so many wonderful story points that I really think you should take a moment to read this! It’s absolutely wonderful! Sara is incredibly talented, I definitely think you should peruse through their stories and try one on for size!

There are so many wonderfully talented writers for this fandom you guys! I have SO MANY MORE that I’d recommend over and over again for this fandom but I’m probably going to split these REC’s up and have a post each day! Again, I cannot stress to you enough how fantastic the writers and stories I’ve listed above are, I highly recommend you check them out if you haven’t already!

Keep sharing all of your REC’s guys!! This is a week about celebrating TUA and our support and appreciation for this fandom and each other! Keep that creativity flowing! I’ll look forward to seeing what everyone else has to share!! ❤️❤️

You can find their tumblrs here:

LiviJoyann (doesn’t have one that I’m aware of—sorry!)

Siriuspiggyback

VeteranKlaus

ObliqueOptimism

#tuafeedbackfest #tua fanfiction reccomendations #tua fandom #the umbrella academy #writing #tua netflix #tua #obliqueoptimism #veteranklaus #siriuspiggyback #livijoyann #neon groves #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #tua fanfic #the umbrella academy fanfic #tuafanfiction #trigger warning #tw major character death

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professorspork · 5 years ago

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Frozen 2: first impressions

Hello friends! As you know, Frozen was a HUGE part of my fandom life ~back in the day.~ So of course I saw the sequel opening night and of course I have thoughts after ruminating on it for 24 hours. I’m sure there will be many things I forget or don’t cover--after all, I’ve only seen it the once. And I make no guarantees that my thoughts are coherent or consistent. (If I contradict myself, I contradict myself-- I am large, I contain multitudes.) I’m also sure my opinions will evolve upon rewatch. Lord knows they did last time.

Is that enough disclaimer yet? OKAY. Some of my thoughts are negative! Some are positive! It’s a grab bag! Here we go!

Spoilers under the cut, pals.

IN SHORT: As an expansion on the world and the characters I adore, I pretty much loved it! As an extension of uh Big Capitalism and what it means in terms of real world ramifications... I have questions/comments/concerns!

IN LONG: I think I’ll start with what didn’t work for me and work my way around to fangirling at the end.

the meh

I feel like... part of it is that Disney has just gotten worse and power-grabbier in way more blatant ways in the last few years, and part of it is that I’m ever-more cognizant of these things. And the fine line they want to walk of “We can tell stories about progressive concepts! Princesses are woke now, actually!” without taking a single financial risk when it comes to alienating foreign markets, homophobes abroad or Nazis domestically is just a fundamentally untenable position to be in. You don’t get to retcon Elsa and Anna as being somehow less white than they clearly are and then try to tell a story about reparations in which no one actually gets reparations. You don’t get to get points for that. It’s in some ways admirable to want to try, but all you do when you’re coming at it from the position of being Disney when you tell this story is show the cracks in it.

I can see how, on a purely storytelling level, having Papa King Arendelle Agnarr be of Arendelle and Iduna be of the Northuldra and having their daughters be the bridge between the two communities is a really tempting, tidy, tie-a-bow-on-it narrative. And I also see how creating the backstory of the war and the mist neatly explains the absence of indigenous faces in the first film. But like... come on. Introducing an indigenous group like the Northuldra and then declaring that Elsa and Anna are a part of it is insulting. There’s no other way to say it. It just feels gross. I’m glad that Disney consulted with the Sámi on the movie, and I acknowledge that both real-life Sámi folks and the onscreen Northuldra come in a broad variety of skin tones and phenotypes. But even with the most generous possible reading of the choice-- that it’s well-intentioned, albeit misguided-- falls flat for me. It feels like Disney trying to have their cake and eat it too. And I don’t really see any way around that. It just... gives me tremendous pause, and it’s so core to so many of the things the movie chooses to be that it’s really disquieting and disappointing.

But then again, Disney being racist isn’t exactly news, and there’s still plenty of flaws to tackle even when we put this (massive) issue aside.

This movie is... weirdly allergic to stakes? It’s not like I wanted Elsa to stay dead, or that I expected Olaf to (more on that in a minute). But Anna’s decision to go full Thor Ragnarok and, as @theseerasures jokingly put it to me last night, “throw the first brick at Stonewall” and destroy Arendelle felt right. It felt appropriate to the story they were telling, and it would have had the film put its money where its mouth is re: how atoning for the sins of our forebears requires massive systemic change. So having Elsa charge to the rescue on her water-type Rapidash extremely queer steed daemon Gay Horse and save the city felt cheap. (Also, side note: is Arendelle really just... that one seaside port town and nothing else? Are there only like fifty people in Arendelle?) The citizens had already been taken to safety. The society would live on; they’d all get to rebuild. What was the point of saving the castle, just for saving the castle’s sake? To what end? I don’t see how that’s more inspiring or reassuring or worth it than watching the sisters lead their people from the ground up and starting anew. I don’t understand what they thought was worth protecting, when, again, all of the people were safe. Stories need stakes in order to have meaning! HTTYD has impact because Hiccup loses his leg in his attempt to save his dragon and his people. You know? You don’t get to just... keep everything the way it is and call that restorative justice, and the film clearly wants us to. And I don’t understand why. The only reason that makes any sense at all to me is that they thought it would scare little kids, but like. THIS COMPANY HAS PORTRAYED WAY MORE TRAUMATIZING THINGS THAN THAT. MANY TIMES.

Point in fact: Olaf’s death! Genuinely disturbing! Sad! For the most part I really liked the way it was handled, but it also felt very. Y’know. “Mister Stark, I don’t feel so good.” This is perhaps my most uncharitable nitpick, so I’ll keep it brief, but having Olaf drift away Snap-style just felt like an extremely synergistic, Disney+ nod at Infinity War instead of an organic decision. Which maybe isn’t fair, because it makes more sense for Olaf to become a flurry than for the Snap to make people dust! But nevertheless, the weird wink-and-a-nudge feeling of it totally pulled me out of what should have been an extremely poignant moment. Elsa’s revelation during “Show Yourself” felt similar--like. Not to take away from your moment, Elsa, but the call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside me was already covered by this larger canon, and in a more elegant and eloquent manner.

Which--tbh, the music overall was a bit of a letdown (though “Into the Unknown” slaps and a boyband of five joshes “Lost in the Woods” was perhaps the best sequence in the whole movie). I respect that they clearly wanted to give everyone a solo this time around in a deliberate way, but the songs felt perfunctory for the most part--describing moments instead of advancing them. This film was such a departure from how Disney normally makes sequels (mostly in a good way, actually) and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would have looked like to make a version of this movie where no one sang at all. It didn’t feel cohesive.

And, though it would kill me to get rid of “Lost in the Woods” because it’s perfect... I kinda wish Anna and Kristoff had gotten engaged at the end of act 1, as I think they pretty clearly did in the first draft of this script. Their relationship drama felt like a hat on top of a hat, and they could still have addressed their codependency/insecurities while being engaged. Leaving the proposal for the end just made it an anticlimax after everyone’s been brought back from the literal dead. And it maybe would have left them with more options than having Kristoff just vanish from the narrative for the entire back half of the second act.

Also Honeymaren should have had at least two more scenes. I can’t justify this on a narrative level; the movie didn’t actually need more of her. But like. If you’re going to go out of your way to keep Elsa carefully single, and even give KRISTOFF a new boyfriend, I feel like the least you can do is let us get to know the obvious throw-us-a-bone offering a little bit better. Like. Literally. the actual least you can do.

anyway. all of that said.

the yay!

I can’t tell you how gratifying it was to me, personally to open with a flashback of the girls that demonstrates as clear as day that Elsa is an ace lesbian and Anna is bi and polyamorous. Thank you, snow action figures.

And like. Overall the way the movie tackled the sisters and their relationship was pure *chef’s kiss.* (And I think for me, the strength in this particular bullet point probably outweighs all of my complaints and concerns from above, in the end. At least from an “I still derive enjoyment from this flawed thing” standpoint, though perhaps not from an “I’d recommend this to anyone without caveats” standpoint.) THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH. THEY WERE SO THEMSELVES. I do think part of the fear of any sequel where there’s been a significant amount of time since the last one and you were so emotionally invested in it the first go-around is like... what if everyone feels OOC? What if what I saw wasn’t what was really in them after all? What if they feel like strangers? What if they let me down? And there was none of that, even for a second, with this movie. Their parallel journeys were character-appropriate and impactful. Elsa finally gets the freedom she’s always been looking for. Anna finally gets the responsibility she’s always been ready for. Anna, the caretaker, is positioned to take care of everyone. Elsa, the lesbian, runs away to the forest to hang out with beautiful powerful women. Elsa, the force of nature, is finally allowed to commune with it. The scene at their parents’ ship truly anchors the whole movie in the best possible way. And also, like... this movie showed how fucking weird Elsa is, and I feel so vindicated. SHE’S SUCH A DORK. I can’t believe I never realized that Elsa would totally choose Charmander as her starter, and the way she talked to the fire salamander was literally the most charming thing I have ever seen. “They’re staring at us, aren’t they?” GOSH. [IMDb says the salamander’s name is Bruni, and I’m very sad they never spoke it aloud.] [Someone do a rotoscope of the Tangled short where Pascal and Max almost ruin Rapunzel and Eugene’s wedding by losing the rings but it’s Bruni and Sven at Kristoff and Anna’s wedding, thank]

Anyway. All of that goes double for Olaf, because I really wasn’t sure they could pull off the miracle of him not being annoying twice. And they did! Olaf’s grappling with his burgeoning maturity was adorable and profound in equal measure, and his plot reenactments were sublime. And when he realized to Anna for the first time that he was feeling angry, that he was capable of feeling angry... what a tremendous moment. (Actually, I’ll extend what I said about the boat scene to include the Earth Giants river sequence in total, because. Again. Wow.)

And I have to say... as much as I am given real pause by their execution of the concept, “you just do the next right thing” is such beautiful (*cough* Jewish *cough*) praxis. I love that. In the broader Disney Revival canon of Tiana’s work ethic and Rapunzel’s abuse narrative and how Wreck-It Ralph talked about PTSD and all of the myriad things the first Frozen did, I might love “the next right thing” most of all. What a simple, powerful, evocative message. It’s so lovely. A perfect gem.

Also worth acknowledging that the animation was straight-up stunning. Which I expected, generally, but the water droplets in the ship? The way Elsa just loses it sobbing when she sees her mother’s face in the ice? The tender, shattered way Anna pulls Olaf in closer to her as he fades? W.O.W. And, y’know, while I stand by what I said above about stakes, I will say that the moment we first see that Elsa is experiencing cold, that Elsa is freezing? Genuinely--and please forgive the pun--genuinely chilling.

I love Gail the Gale. I love Mattias and Yelana and Ryder and Honeymaren. But mostly I just... loved the dialogue and these characters and that I got to spend a little more time with them. And I’m sure I’ll do so at least two more times before it leaves theaters.

... apparently this is over 2k words now so that seems as good a place to leave it as any. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#does #anyone #use #tracked #tags #anymore?#either way #let's stay out of them #that should do it #frozen 2 #frozen 2 spoilers #frozen #frozen spoilers #spoilers

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misscrawfords · 5 years ago

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The Rise of Skywalker: Part One

I have lots of thoughts and feelings about TROS. Most of them negative. For three days I’ve been alternating between raging and crying. Finally, I’ve felt able to start writing.

This is a negative review. If you loved the film then this might not be the post for you. I am very sensitive to what happened after TLJ. And I want to reassure anyone reading that I would never turn criticism for a film (which is absolutely a valid response to seeing something that you disliked and are trying to understand) into personal attacks against the actors or creators involved or, worse still, fans who liked it. If you liked TROS, can’t bear to hear any criticism of it, and still choose to read my posts about it, then that is on you. (I really shouldn’t have to say this but this is a hellsite.)

This post contains spoilers for TROS... and Jumanji 2. Go figure.

Things I liked:

· C-3PO and everything he did. This droid is the character I identify with most in the entire SW series (which probably says some uncomfortable things about me but this is not the time!) and he had such a big and important role and his quips were genuinely great and funny and I loved everything he did. Apart from – but more on that later.

· Ben Solo. Uh, other people have talked about his little shrug and his “ow” and his smile – oh god, his smile. Ben Solo is amazing. It’s a shame that – but more on that later.

· I didn’t hate Rey Palpatine. I mean, I literally wrote this story when I was 13 when I made Hermione Voldemort’s daughter as a way of explaining her inner darkness and had her team up with Harry (with whom she had a telepathic bond) to destroy him. (You can read the story here if you really want to.) So it would be pretty hypocritical of me to hate this plotline. I enjoyed seeing angry, feral Rey on screen, I enjoyed seeing a female hero confronting her capacity for destruction and darkness. I was okay with the idea of a final face-off between a Palpatine and a Skywalker and how this is a way of bringing final balance to the Force. This was pretty interesting and I’d be up for this. I much prefer Rey Nobody but as a concept I’m not actually against it. Unfortunately the execution – but more on that later.

· I really enjoyed more of Finn and Poe. I love both of them as characters. I mean I can’t think of a single bit of dialogue that was meaningful between them or what they accomplished in particular for they had some fun moments.

· Finn and Jannah’s conversation about being ex-stormtroopers was a lovely scene, a moment of much-needed quiet and reflection and bonding in a film that was far too hectic and crowded. Shame it went nowhere.

· Reylo kiss? I mean, that was cool.

· Unironically, I loved Hux. He was snarky and his revelation of being the spy because he just hated Kylo that much got the biggest reaction in the cinema of the entire showing. Admittedly it was derisive laughter as we all realised what a clusterfuck of bad writing this film was, but still. It crossed over into so-bad-it’s-good territory. Hux gave me considerable pleasure in a film that otherwise made me very angry.

· My favourite scene in the film was when Rey and Kylo fought on Pasaana over the transport ship with Chewie (apparently) on and Rey blows it up. The cinematography was amazing, it was a visual representation of both balance and building on the lightsaber breaking scene in TLJ while upping the stakes considerably and Rey’s reaction of visceral horror when she realised what she had done was truly shocking and unexpected. To have Chewie killed off so suddenly like this for no reason except that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the stakes are high and this is a desperate war with casualties – genius. A perfect way to make Rey and Ben even more similar – both having killed father figures – and have Rey confront her dark side as she wrestles with what she has done and the consequences of having a non-unified relationship with Ben while also being in a position to truly empathise with him – this was exactly the content I had signed up for. But it was the moment that it was revealed that Chewie was still alive that I realised what I’d only suspected before then: that this film was terrible and I would not be able to trust any emotion it was inviting me to feel.

Fundamentally, I think that this film is incredibly poorly written and emotionally dishonest. It is telling that I saw Jumanji 2 earlier in the day and out of the two films, the only point at which I cried was when Milo decided to stay in Jumanji as a horse. Why did I cry? Because Milo and Grandpa’s relationship had been gradually built up over the course of a film that was not afraid of quiet moments and building a narrative of a relationship that revealed what it needed over the course of several meaningful scenes. It allowed Milo’s decision to stay to be both a tragic loss but also a happy ending for him. Truly bittersweet and in a way that everyone can relate to. The loss of a dear friend to illness is a horrible but human thing to contemplate. To be able to set this friend free through a metaphor of a beautiful death and afterlife is genuinely moving and hopeful. Unfortunately TROS did not manage to give me any such emotions or elicit a single tear.

At least not till afterwards. I’ve subsequently cried a lot, some of it over the tragedy of Ben and Rey in a film that promised hope, but mainly for myself and the other (mainly) young female fans who have poured all their knowledge and intelligence into analysis of TFA and TLJ and who seemed to understand the story that was being told and who had been promised more of this story in the interviews and trailers released prior to this film – and who are now feeling like absolute garbage as this film throws out its own mythology for an incoherent, self-serving mess that in many ways defies analysis. The only thing I feel really capable of analysing is how much it doesn’t work, as opposed to what the film is trying to do. Where is the symbolism? Where is the metaphor? Where is the hero’s journey? Where is the heroine’s journey? Where is nuance? Where is everything that was set up in both TFA and TLJ? IDK, I can’t see it. It’s a kick in the teeth.

So, no matter how many individual things I was able to enjoy at the time when watching TROS, they end up being meaningless because the entire film was so bad. I can’t feel pleasure thinking about the good bits because they were mired in context (or lack of it). I can’t feel genuine sorrow about the fate of Rey and Ben because the execution of that fate was so poorly done. I don’t even mind that Ben died. It was always an option and the story of redemption followed by death is a very common story, a very Christian story. Though the death of Christ to save us from our sins, is crucially followed by resurrection. I mean, literally everyone can and does die. That doesn’t make you special. If you’re going for a Christ metaphor, you kind of need resurrection too. But I’m not sure that was exactly what they were going for with it; it was a mess and the execution made little internal consistency.

It may be that if I watched the film again, my problems would be lessened and I would see new things in them and they would make sense. I’ve read some twitter threads of people who are making connections and finding explanations on a second or third viewing. But the problem is that I shouldn’t need to see a film more than once to fundamentally understand it. I don’t mean picking up on new and interesting features and subtext which a good film, like a good book, rewards you with on multiple viewings. TLJ does that. But you should be able to follow what the ultimate meaning of a film is when you see it first.

If that is the case, then the ultimate meaning of TROS is that the good are good, the bad are bad, change is rewarded with death, a character who was once alone ends up alone again, plot coherency is sacrificed for whatever explosion or cool backwards-reference is needed at the time, death is not the end except when it is, there is no cosistency and consequently no emotional impact. And apparently it is a happy and hopeful ending? The tonal disconnect with the story being told and the way it was shot and the music being played and the clear intention of the people making the film is utterly jarring.

To famously quote Macbeth:

It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

This post is already too long so I will go into my criticisms in more detail in a further post. Stay tuned!

Read Part Two here.

#tros #tros spoilers #star wars #the rise of skywalker #anti-tros

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laurabelle2930 · 6 years ago

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Chapter Review: “The Predator” Ch 21 Meeting

So the amazing and talented @supersillyanddorky06 has once again graced us with her writing genius. So as I promised a very kind Nonnie earlier today here is my chapter review.

Let’s just start with those descriptions shall we. What I’ve always loved about this story other than the entire damn thing is how our wonderful writer has chosen to use the surroundings of this universe. What’s always fascinating is how the use of space is indicative of where our characters are emotionally. For example the most captivating scene for me is still the shower scene. The space was small, tight and, the characters at that point in the story had never been closer on an emotional level. The tight space allowed for us the readers to almost feel the emotional cords between them building as they each took something from the other. It wasn’t about sex it was about admitting to the other without the use of words that they both yearned for a connection whether it be physical or not.

Here we open the chapter with Felicity being alone. However she wasn’t just alone physically she was also alone in the emotional sense. Here she is surrounded by opulence and most importantly power with an undertone of death and, danger. The room itself was described as being monstrous yet I’d never seen Felicity so isolated. What’s also revealed in this segment is of vital importance. Felicity grew up in this world. She’s the daughter of a mob boss, in the opening lines it’s even stated that she grew up sleeping with knifes underneath her pillow. She’s no stranger to what living in this world means yet for the first time I felt tangible fear as I read the chapter. That was until Felicity realized that the last time she’d slept with a weapon was the night before she was taken the penthouse of the man who’d threatened to end her life. This was the development I’ve been waiting for since Chapter one. Felicity finally came to the realization that she feels safe with Oliver Queen. She feels protected, she feels at ease in her own skin, she trusts her choices but, she also has learned to trust his. This to me was the highlight of the chapter. This to me was the heart of the chapter.

I’ll move past meeting the beautiful sister of Amara but, we have to focus on Chiara and the effect she evoked in Felicity which again was another turning point in this chapter. Now again since chapter one the relationship between Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak has been fraught with the duality of both their natures. We have Oliver Queen on one side with his endless secrets and, of course his endless scars one of which she caused. His demons go back to the day he saved her life and, yet I still firmly believe that Oliver doesn’t want to kill Felicity, I honestly don’t think he ever did. He was a child who was destroyed piece by piece until he could be rebuilt into one thing. He was turned into a Predator by other Predator’s. He literally became the very monster that he’d saved Felicity from being destroyed by. He became the demon’s he feared in order to survive.

Felicity is the same. She’s not a killer like Oliver but, she is a Predator in her own right. She grew up in this world. She wasn’t tortured or trained like Oliver but, she was in a very different way. Women in this world aren’t people they’re used as weapons of war. They serve as diversions or even distractions. They’re used to make deals and, to appease those who want more than words or the blood of an enemy over the barrel of a gun. Felicity was cast into the mold of victim and yet she never once became one. She slept with weapons beneath her pillow. She educated herself, she bettered herself until even Oliver Queen could see her value. She made herself a weapon that was capable of bringing down any man including Maroni. She became a weapon that even softened the heart of Oliver Queen.

When Chiara walks in she’s described as beautiful if not stunning and, the moment Felicity notes her reaction to Oliver she becomes what? She becomes jealous because without ever saying the actual words she’s decided that Oliver Queen belongs to her. When they fucked in the bathroom and in the shower that was all about them marking the other with their scents. That wasn’t about love that was about two damaged people proclaiming in a very physical if not very visceral way that you belong to me. I’ve scented you, I’ve marked you and, I’ve claimed your body as mine. Most people I’m sure saw it as one sided exchange but, if again you’ve been paying attention Oliver’s already marked his territory. Each time they’ve become intimate has been with Felicity’s consent. The “sex” wasn’t about Oliver’s territorial nature at least not solely; it was also about her own. So when Chiara walks in and makes eyes at what Felicity has claimed as her own she begins to wonder if she was wrong especially after he finally shared something real with her... Especially after the kiss that broke down the barrier of trust between them both. Kissing her with a gun positioned at her head, then her throat and finally her heart was both of them becoming submissive to the other. It was the most powerful scene thus far and, the most revealing but that was another chapter so moving on.

The eye contact and the wordless acknowledgement was spot on and perfectly executed. If they’re going to survive in the den of the demon that created our Predator they have to be what? On the same wavelength. She has to trust him completely and the same goes for Oliver. The bond between them has to be unbreakable and, the small exchange when Oliver wordlessly conveys that Chiara meant nothing and, was nothing to him was perfect. It shows that the bond between them is not only growing but, it’s expanding outwards to all aspects of their now combined worlds. Another example of again the bond between them growing was once again the subconscious connection. The man was going to physically violate Felicity. He was going to humiliate her for Maroni’s amusement. Yet Oliver stepped forward and, claimed her. Now as sexy as Oliver patting her down was it was also the most intimate they’ve ever been. He touched her, he actually touched her skin and took his time as he searched her entire body. He used the tips of his fingertips to not only entice but excite the woman before him. He in a sense made love to the woman without ever actually committing the act before a room full of dangerous men. I was just completely entranced by this scene.

Last but not least isn’t the whole she stays with me thing. We knew he’d do that and we knew he’d be denied. Oliver has been clear from the start. Where he goes she goes. Where she sleeps, he sleeps. He wants her with him and, its no longer to ensure that he takes her life; nor has it been for quite some time. No what really bookended this chapter perfectly was how she once again has gone to sleeping with a weapon since she was sentenced to living in a house full of people who would like nothing more than to break Oliver Queen. See again the scene before when he searched her for weapons. As I said he made love to her in that moment and he did so before a crowded room. He made it known beyond any doubt that he has a weakness that he no longer wants to destroy. He has a weakness he wants to protect, what Oliver Queen did without again ever saying the words was admit his feelings for Felicity. And those feelings aren’t about death they’re about life and for once believing he could have one that included love and perhaps even redemption. So she walks into another spacious room, she’s feeling alone until her phone buzzes. They flirt a bit but then Felicity realizes Oliver is still with her. He’s still able to watch over her, he’s still able to protect her and, just like that Felicity no longer feels alone.

The core of this story for has always been about two damaged people finding the one other person who can silence the voices within. Matty said it best when she had Felicity say in the previous chapter “his demons dance with my own.” I’ve always been someone who believes in soulmates and, that’s what we’re seeing here. What makes it hard to see is the dark nature of the story but, it’s also what makes it captivating. It completely takes what we know about love and flips the script. The story is rooted in darkness, yet the light is evident in the small beats between the two lost souls. The human condition aspect is raw, unchained and, unfiltered by fluffy words and filler. The story doesn’t shy away from complex emotions it instead choices to use them until both characters have nothing more to say than I need you, I want you, and I love you. In short the story’s beauty is in the flawed nature of the two main characters. As always @supersillyanddorky06 this story truly gives new meaning to what fanfic should and could be.

Tagging: @hope-for-olicity @memcjo @it-was-a-red-heeler @angelalafan @mel-loves-all @emmaamelia95 @mammashof @green-arrows-of-karamel @tdgal1 and really anyone who wants to read this.

#chapter review #the predator #matty's fic #@supersillyanddorky06 #amazing fic #amazing writer #thought #feelings #otp #olicity

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xarciel · 7 years ago

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Why Megatron’s Redemption Arc Falls Flat - Part 1

So the intention was to have this out before LL #22, which it kind of is?? Disregarding the leak, which I haven’t read yet - but since Megatron’s back in the picture again, I wanted to go over why I don’t feel his redemption arc works. This is going to be a 2-part post, with Part 1 here based on how Megs’ arc affects his character narrative, and Part 2 (which I’ll probably post within the week), will be about how Megs’ arc functions on a meta level, and how those meta-textual details are used to highlight and hide different parts of his story.

To start, a recap on what a redemption arc is: a character making up for past mistakes - a process of self-reflection and action taken to make amends for things they’ve done in the past.

One really good example of this in the TF comics so far is Drift. High ranking Decepticon general switches sides late in the war, joining the Black Ops equivalent of the Autobots, specifically so that he can go in and take on the worst aspects of his former faction. He uses religion to soothe his guilt and acknowledges that he’s made enemies of most everyone he’s likely to meet - the Decepticons for defecting, and the Autobots for being a Decepticon. He uses that to his advantage to protect his friend (Rodimus) from punishment, and uses his time in exile to try and right as many wrongs as possible in an attempt to balance his karmic scale. Is it a healthy approach? Not entirely. But is it a believable, emotionally strong character arc? Absolutely.

So we’ve seen a redemption arc done right. But then we get to Megatron’s. Leader of a war faction that committed genocide on billions of sentient beings under his orders denounces the faction under duress and gets put in a leadership position of a small band of generally Autobot aligned Cybertronians, becomes a pacifist and then is allowed to teach lessons on the ship. When he is confronted by the DJD angry about his abandonment of the movement he convinces his teammates to stay on the planet to defend organics and fight while he directs from the back. After deciding to abandon his vow of pacifism he kills the DJD and restores his Decepticon badge, is saved by his teammates, and reverts back to his Autobot allegiance. He and the team are then thrust into an alternate world where the Decepticon movement never began and Cybertron is under totalitarian rule, again commands a force from the back, before remaining behind in this universe to begin the Decepticon movement again, so they may rise up against their Functionist masters - but this time, he will do it ‘right’.

I mean, what? Did anybody else see the huge blip in his supposed redemption there?

Let me make my position clear. I don’t like this arc. I don’t like how Megatron’s personality turns on a dime, and we are expected to believe that this is because he has been redeemed. Because he hasn’t.

Megatron’s biggest concern is his reputation. He only changes his ways when he steps back and realises ‘shit, I’m the villain in this story’ - he didn’t win the war, which means he’s not the conquering hero, which means he doesn’t get to write the history books now. No, he’s staring down the barrel at a future of hatred and blame that he does not think he deserves. That’s what motivates him to twist the trial in his favour. That’s what motivates him to distance himself from the Decepticon narrative. That’s what motivates him to confront the DJD. And that’s what motivates him to try and reclaim that mantle in the Functionist universe. It’s all about his damn ego.

And he knows how to play the game. He’s a master manipulator, and sometimes his lies are blatant as he tries to play the good guy card. When he wakes up with Tailgate preparing to perform mnemosurgery, he says later to Cyclonus ‘I wouldn’t have hurt him. I hope you know that.’ Bull fucking shit. When Rung plans to disbar himself from practicing, he first tries to prevent Rung from handing in his resignation by claiming that Rung ‘deserves’ to continue in his role. When he’s met with resistance he tells Rung he should let his patients know, and that from there they can decide if they want to see him. Rung shoots this down pretty damn quick though - because Rung knows that he is the voice of experience in this situation, and that therefore it is his duty to do the right thing. This is in direct contradiction to what we’ve seen of Megatron. If Megatron had showed the same sense of responsibility, he would never have taken up the mantle of leadership again in the Functionist universe. He knows what happened last time. But he leaves his new people uninformed on the assumption that he can objectively monitor himself, he is setting them up for disaster.

Which brings us back to this: Megatron doesn’t care about the people he’s hurt, or about the lives or planets he’s ravaged. He only cares about his own story.

The unleashing of Megatron upon a Cybertron that doesn’t know what he’s been doing for the past four million years is treated within the narrative as something wonderful, a chance for a new beginning, but really? Megatron gets a chance to start his story again, from scratch, but all those people he killed? The lives he destroyed? They don’t matter to him, and they’re not supposed to matter to the audience either. Megatron gets a clean slate, and meanwhile, the rest of the cast goes back to cleaning up the messes he left behind.

Megatron doesn’t deserve a clean slate. He needs to confront the results of his past – something that the canon lets him get away without. At no point does Megatron speak to any cons who suffered for his war, they never visit places Megatron has pillaged for resources, and when people do try to hold him responsible, they are positioned as the bad guys. Megatron talks about how being on the LL is the happiest time of his life, and really that makes a lots of sense. He’s been elevated to a position of power, like he always wanted, he’s being respected as an academic, like he always wanted, and he is working with an isolated group of people who are all treated as equals, like he wanted. The big thing he conveniently forgets, however, is that he’s not responsible for any of this. All this success Megatron is receiving? That all comes from the Autobots. Could you imagine he would show as much mercy if he had won the war? But no, this is Megatron’s story. As long as he is happy, he does not need to bother himself with the mess he left behind.

Megatron’s redemption arc falls flat for me because this is not the Megatron that we’ve seen in the IDW verse for the last umpteen years. This is an entirely different creature, and significant work was done to make him as sympathetic as possible, and to make the audience forget who Megatron truly is.

For a meta-textual analysis of how that is done, stay tuned for Part 2 [which will be linked here when complete].

#tfrants #mtmte #maccadam #lost light

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usratonkachi · 7 years ago

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sasuke uchiha’s trajectory / a pro-sasuke meta.

Sasuke was more than just a rebel, spoiled and “whining emo kid” that wanted revenge, I can prove it.

Contains anti Konoha, shinobi system, Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, Danzou, Hiruzen, Tobirama, SS/SNS arguments, so if you're not ready to handle criticism against your favourite character or ship, don't even read it.

This is for people to think more deeply about Sasuke and his actions, so you don't have to fully agree. But I'm not open for critics or similar. I'm exposing what I think, what I saw and how I interpreted Sasuke's trajectory. If you strongly do not agree with or get offended by anything under the cut, that's not my problem so you can complain over there, don't @ me.

However, if you have any real doubts, other valid arguments to add, or you just want to talk about what you just read / discuss about anything you politely disagree with, you can contact me here or here, or chat me on tumblr itself. I'm not changing my mind though.

Also, a big thank you to my friend who translated from pt-br for me because I’m too lazy. Love you, Konan. ♡

1. WHEN SASUKE LEFT KONOHA:

Here's where Sasuke starts being hated by the Naruto fanbase because it's when he stops acting according to what Konoha believes he's supposed to. But, before hating him, there's a lot of things to acknowledge about.

Sasuke always believed to be an avenger ever since the Uchiha massacre. Even when he began to blend in well on Team 7's dynamic, as soon as Itachi landed feet in Konoha again and he failed to defeat him, he came back to believe in such fact. Thus, he wanted to grow stronger.

Not just for seeking to be stronger, Sasuke also feels like he doesn't belong to Konoha anymore. Sakura never understood the pain of having everything that matters the most taken away, Naruto never really had anything and Kakashi, the only one who could connect to him, only pushes him away.

1.2. KAKASHI:

Although what people think, Kakashi and Sasuke's relationship was deeper than it seemed. Kakashi was someone that made Sasuke feel safe and vehemently trained him for the Chuunin Exam. In a summary, Sasuke trusted Kakashi and had him as a mentor.

Instead of offering Sasuke the emotional support he needed, Kakashi basically fought him for using one of his jutsu against an ally even though Naruto had done it too and could just have killed him as well. Beyond that, he insults him multiple times and doesn't take his only goal seriously. He tied up the boy to a tree like he was some kind of animal, for God’s sake.

You can read more about Sasuke and Kakashi’s relationship in this awesome analysis.

This is only the beginning of Konoha trying to make Sasuke feel guilty for everything he did and wanted to do, when actually all his hate and thirst for revenge was perfectly comprehensive, since he lost everything to the system he lives in.

1.2. SAKURA:

Besides comparing her pain of losing him with his pain of having his whole family murdered by his own brother, Sakura still blackmails him emotionally because it's all about what SHE wants, about what SHE feels. It only shows she doesn't really understand him.

1.3. NARUTO:

Naruto, just like the rest, also doesn't get Sasuke's goals and motivations and tries to stop him from seeking power with Orochimaru, even if he has to "break his arms and legs".

In a summary, the approach of these three didn’t work. Naruto thought he could handle everything with his fists, Sakura thought making it about her own feelings was a good idea, but their lack of maturity is understadable. However, Kakashi understating Sasuke’s pain, like he wasn’t allowed to feel that way because Kakashi himself didn’t (it’s not even the same situation lmao), only made it all worse and was a decisive reason for him to leave.

2. WHEN SASUKE "ALLIED" HIMSELF TO OROCHIMARU.

Besides what everyone thinks, Sasuke doesn't really allied himself to Orochimaru or condoned with his ideology like Anko or Kabuto. He didn't intend for him to possess his body, not before killing Itachi. He wanted to train and get strong.

To this point, Sasuke literally didn't do anything questionable. During training, he never killed anyone or acted as cold as he wanted people to think he was. That's why he says "I'll be merciless in front of him (Itachi)," because that's something he has to force himself to become, not something he is.

One more proof Sasuke never shared Orochimaru's goals and, instead, used him as a way to obtain more power is his speech before "killing him", where he questions his goals and ways.

After Orochimaru's "death", Sasuke frees all his prisoners and victims of his experiment, including Suigetsu, Juugo and Karin. In Juugo's case, he offered himself to be his "prison", stopping him from hurting even more people.

In pursuit of Zabuza's sword, Sasuke prevents Suigetsu from killing just any person.

3. WHEN SASUKE LEARNT THE TRUTH ABOUT ITACHI.

This is a crucial point in Sasuke's history because it's where he finds out that the brother whom he always had the goal to kill in revenge actually did everything in order for him to stay alive and become a hero.

At this point, it's important to keep in mind that Sasuke accomplished his lifetime goal, the only thing he believed he was alive for. Many times he said he didn't care as to what happened with his life after that moment, so it is unimaginable the misery and emptiness that he felt. Pay close attention to the expression of his eyes.

Not even the sight of another Uchiha alive took this expression of pure misery from his eyes. That’s how broken he was at this point.

Obito took advantage of Sasuke's mental instability to pour over him all the truth about Itachi. At the minimal possibility of all the acknowledge about his brother and his entire life being a lie, he breaks down, literally blacks out.

At this moment, there is a giant lack of critical sense from the fandom. Sasuke finds out that Itachi was coerced to do a mission to save his life at the behest of the Konoha leaders. So it's OBVIOUS that he couldn't return to Konoha after knowing the truth.

Many think that, since he knew Itachi did everything for the Village (which wasn't exactly the truth because he'd feel doubtful before, but made his decision once Sasuke's life was threatened), Sasuke should, too. But instead, he hates who made Itachi suffer.

Not only because of his brother, Sasuke hates Konoha for the way it treated his clan, with mistrustfulness and discrimination over one of the families that helped founding the Village.

"Even in the middle of the most profound despair, his eyes reflect a single ray of hope"*. That summarises well how Sasuke felt without any perspective of life, but grabbed onto the first shadow of objective that was offered. Obito knew how to take advantage of Sasuke's misery.

*This is a sentence that is written on chapter’s 400 art cover but I couldn’t find it in English.

4. WHEN SASUKE INVADED THE KAGES' REUNION.

Recruited to Akatsuki and manipulated by Tobi, Sasuke made his first move directly against Konoha when he appeared at the Kages' reunion to face Danzou, one of the responsibles for his clan's genocide and Itachi's sacrifice.

Sasuke's plan was to find Danzou and destroy him like part of revenge against Konoha, but Zetsu alerts the Kages about his presence in the place, which causes everyone to fight against him.

From here on, Taka starts to question Sasuke's sanity multiple times because of the sudden change in his chakra. Gathering all the precious traumas, the guilt for Itachi's death and sacrifice and the hate over who made him go through it, he was on the edge of going mad.

At this point, Sasuke doesn't put anything above his goals. Danzou confirms that Itachi's sacrifice was true and nothing else matters to him, so he kills Danzou and sacrifices Taka. After that, he realises Sakura's intention to kill him and strikes back, trying to kill her as well.

Then Sakura tries to kill him once again, and once again he defends himself trying to kill her back. The same happens with Naruto and Kakashi. So psychologically unstable, he doesn't even care about his physical limitations and insists on keep on fighting blindly.

We all know Sakura hesitated but Sasuke didn’t. His sight was troubled and she came from behind. He was defending himself.

Tobi advising him to kill Karin:

As much as Sasuke was reluctant because he wanted to be definitely full hatred, vulnerable regarding physical strength, he voluntarily decides to hear what Naruto has to say.

Then Naruto starts the “because we’re friends” talk and Sasuke clearly feels kind of affected because he actually wants that bond so badly but he also wants justice for his brother and clan, about what he’s totally right.

In a summary, besides the declared intention to kill Karin after she was hit because of his shaken up sanity, Sasuke acted in self defense and in defense of his goals, what ended up not killing anyone.

5. WHEN SASUKE JOINED THE WAR.

Sasuke meets Itachi's edo tensei with still profound grudge over Konoha for what it did to his brother. He wanted answers from Itachi in order to confirm everything that was told by Tobi and Danzou.

The closer to Itachi he feels, the more Sasuke hates Konoha and wants to revenge his brother for being forced to sacrifice himself.

After confirming that Itachi's sacrifice for the village and himself was true, Sasuke falls into an internal conflict for not being certain of any concepts anymore; of a clan, a village, a shinobi, and even himself. To obtain answers, he resurrects Orochimaru to bring the Hokages back to life.

There is a lot of virtue and maturity in Sasuke's decision of understanding all the concepts through their stories. Patiently, he listens to Hashirama's version about everything to then come to a conclusion on what to do about his revenge and himself.

Hashirama talks about his and Madara's trajectory, inwardly connected to the Village's concept, which he had helped found. And allied to the concept of a ninja village, he defined sacrifice as one of the methods to protect it, which Madara stated would drag the Village into darkness, what was clearly a reference to Itachi and the Uchiha's sacrifice, culminating into Sasuke's personal hell. In the end, Hashirama ends up taking the responsibility for this method being considerated valid to protect the Village.

In front of all that, Sasuke, for now, decides to battle next to the Shinobi Alliance so that his brother's sacrifice wouldn't have been in vain. Next to Naruto and Sakura, he seals Kaguya and has an important part in the world's salvage. Without him, there would literally be no way to save it.

Besides all of that, he still recognised the mistake he made on Karin and asked for her forgiveness.

An addendum: SASUKE DID NOT TRY TO KILL SAKURA IN THIS MOMENT like a lot of people try to decontextualise. He put her in a GENJUTSU, the same way Itachi did to himself after the Uchiha's massacre. One more reenforcement to his attempt of cutting his ties with the previous Team 7.

6. WHEN SASUKE BATTLED NARUTO.

To this point, Sasuke comes to an obvious conclusion, but that requires extreme perspicacity from a 17 year old kid: Konoha's problem was its system. The failure that would allow sacrifices like Itachi's to happen was structural.

Even Orochimaru, when resurrected, acknowledges Sasuke's maturing.

With that in mind, Sasuke decides to become a Hokage and lead a revolution that would change the shinobi system and would nip the world's evil in the bud.

Sasuke's revolution consisted in following Itachi's steps, his great inspiration and influence, sacrificing himself to carry alone all the hate in the world. The intention of it was to unify the whole world and that only he would have to deal with the Villages' darkness.

This new goal of him destroys every argument against him that paints him as someone egocentric and selfish. Everything Sasuke wished for was to deal with the darkness by himself in a way that there wouldn't be any more sacrifices like Itachi's or of children like himself and Naruto.

Therefore, as noble as his objectives were and as mature as they sounded for his age, Sasuke sins on the chosen ways to start his revolution (even though I wouldn’t mind if he killed the kages whereas all their war crimes). Still, it's comprehensive since he started using Itachi's example as a guide of his actions.

Sasuke then apologised for all the suffering he caused his friends, even though it wasn't really his fault. He felt so responsible for the bad events that he left on a redemption trip to see the world with his own eyes, proving his maturity once again.

7. WHEN SASUKE LEFT ON A MISSION.

I want to start this section saying how much I despise for personal reasons (it’s explained at the end of this meta) canon adult Sasuke for what Kishimoto did to his character but I defend him anyway because he’s still hated for absolutely wrong reasons.

Apart from everything he went through previously, Sasuke was brainwashed accepted the position of shadow Hokage and started to protect Konoha even if the village never had redeemed itself for its crimes against his brother and clan.

He sacrificed almost an entire life next to his wife and daughter in favour of not only Konoha, but the world, since he was the only one who could track traces of Kaguya thanks to his Rinnegan. In the meantime, he saved the village again and again.

Sasuke is constantly judged for pointing out a sword in Sarada's direction on their first meeting, although there wasn't how he'd know that, out of all people, she would be there (thank you Naruto you’re so responsible, no wonder you’re such a good parent lmao) considering there were sharingan user clones walking around.

Anyhow, he saved his daughter when it was needed and searched for Sakura to guarantee her safety, even though he had defended that she would be fine since she was as strong as him and Naruto. Besides, he AGAIN helped saving everyone.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS & PERSONAL ANALYSIS.

Sasuke was a child that had everything and lost it all in the most traumatising way possible to the person he loved the most, ordered by the Village he grew in. He saw his family BEING SLAUGHTERED thousands of times in Itachi's genjustu when he was just a kid.

He had his only goal ripped from him on his teen years when getting rid of the target of his revenge only to learn that he actually had sacrificed himself on HIS BEHALF, since his LIFE WAS THREATENED by the superiors responsible for Konoha.

Although being a completely traumatised child and psychologically shaken up, being manipulated by his brother first, then by many others who only wanted to take advantage of his abilities, Sasuke still became aware of the world enough to want to change it for the better.

The revolutionary ideals that conferred depth to the character and made him promising were devastated because antagonists are portrayed as "insane", "out of their minds", "dominated by hatred" so we'll think the revolution of systems is a crazy people thing.

Sasuke was a victim of the system that allows 13 year old children to kill their families in sacrifice of a "greater cause", like this kid and theret family weren't part of who deserved protection. If he had controversial actions, Konoha and its system are the ones to blame.

The real guilty ones are Tobirama, who SEGREGATED the Uchiha without a reason; Hiruzen, that didn't have any tact or pulse to deal with Danzou and the Uchiha; and Danzou, whose crimes I don't even have to mention because they're common sense. If you want to blame someone, these are the ones.

Even though the real guilty ones were previously mentioned, Sasuke was thrown in jail and still got scolded by the greatest Sixth Hokage, his said mentor, who told him to "try not to go mad again", like it was his fault for being traumatised thanks to the Village.

And that's why I hate the ending of my favourite character. It has nothing to do with some kind of ship like many may think (even though I’d much prefer him to end with someone who could really understand him), but because he was distorted to fit in a stupid and conformist narrative, when he had a marvellous potential as a character.

And as if it's not enough, he's hated and made fun of in the fanbase, even though he's the only one, among the kids, to really make sense, even with all the traumas he suffered. Even when he had proved not to be selfish, or dumb, nor egocentric or a terrible father or an abusive husband and etc.

Sasuke Uchiha did nothing wrong and I just proved it. If you, a possible anti who read it all the way here, still want to keep in the ignorance of hating the character based on his actions then that's on you. I've done my part. That's it. Now go love my baby cause he deserves it. ♡

I couldn’t get to all of these opinions without help, so I’m recommending some important pro-Sasuke posts (besides the ones I already did during the post).

Sasuke changing the shinobi system thread. About adult Sasuke. Sasuke’s “crimes”. Sasuke’s protectiveness 1 and 2. Anti SasuSaku fandom. Naruto’s feelings for Sasuke. The Fucking Will Of Fire™. Why pro-Sasuke people are pro-Sasuke anyway? Anti-SNS. Sasuke’s guilt trip.

pt-br twitter thread / pt-br tumblr trans

#sasuke uchiha #pro sasuke #meta post about sasuke #pro uchiha #pro itachi #anti ss #anti sns #anti naruto #anti hiruzen #anti danzou #anti tobirama #anti kakashi #anti konoha #anti shinobi system #anti naruto ending #i spent hours and days preparing it #i hope it helps to save some antis' souls #mine

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years ago

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Avengers: Infinity War - Quill’s Quickies (No Spoilers)

Sometimes I think back to when the MCU first started. How excited I was that the Avengers were finally on the big screen. The attention to detail in regards to world building and character dynamics. There was no limit to the possibilities involved here. Us geeks were living the dream. Compare that to the MCU now. A bloated, cynical sequel factory churning out blander and blander movies each year, over-saturating the medium with what is, essentially, glorified B movies. Whenever I think about the MCU nowadays, I recall that scene near the end of The Dark Knight when the Joker says to Batman; “I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” That’s how I feel about Marvel movies now. I just feel this permanent sense of ennui. It’s like being trapped in a loveless marriage. Once there was passion and fireworks, but now the spark has gone out of the relationship and I’m silently praying for some kind of respite that will never come.

Avengers: Infinity War is a landmark movie in more ways than one. It represents the culmination of 10 years worth of collaborative filmmaking, it’s quite possibly the most ambitious crossover to date, but it also in many ways signifies just what a stupid, dull, incoherent mess this shared universe has turned into.

As you can probably tell by now, I didn’t exactly go into this film with high expectations. Going through the MCU in recent years has been like walking through a scorching desert without end. Black Panther provided a kind of temporary oasis, full of palm trees, beautiful lagoons and a luxury spa, but sadly I had to leave this paradise behind to brave the desert wastes once again. And having experienced that moment of sheer bliss in that oasis, the harshness of the desert sands feel all the more unbearable. But even then, as I took my seat in the cinema, I foolishly had a small glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, Infinity War wouldn’t be so bad. It’s directed by the Russo Brothers after all. They made the brilliant Captain America: The Winter Soldier and pleasantly surprised me with Captain America: Civil War. I remember going into Civil War with the same pessimistic feeling, and while it wasn’t a perfect movie by any means, it was a lot better than it had any right to be. If anyone could make Infinity War work, surely it would be them, right?

Sadly it seems we’ve finally found the Russos’ breaking point. Avengers: Infinity War was utterly tedious to sit through. I was bored to tears. Not only was I struggling to make sense of what was going on half the time, I didn’t care about what was going on neither.

Let’s start with the most glaring and obvious problem. The characters. There are WAY too many of them. I swear you could easily have gotten a whole trilogy out of this. In fact I honestly would have preferred that. It would have given the story more room to breathe. Instead everything is just crammed into one overly long film that constantly jumps to different locations every couple of minutes as though the filmmakers have some form of ADHD, and none of the characters are allowed to get any kind of development. In fact they’re not characters at all. They’re chess pieces. They show up on screen, do what the script requires them to do, and then disappear once their purpose has been fulfilled.

There were some moments that could have been more impactful, like scenes involving Thanos and Gamora, Vision and Scarlet Witch, or Loki and Thor, but they don’t have nearly the emotional resonance they should have because they’re essentially fighting for space in this gigantic clusterfuck. Other characters, like Captain America and Black Panther, are forced to become these dull, shallow caricatures because the story just doesn’t have any room for them to really shine or come into their own. The focus isn’t on telling an engaging story or developing the characters, but instead on these massive, computer generated action scenes that I simply don’t give a shit about (in fact the final fight in Wakanda reminded me rather horribly of the battle on Naboo in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace). Not to mention, due to how poorly this whole arc with the Infinity Stones has been handled over the course of these movies, Infinity War spends most of its time explaining to the audience just what the fuck is going on and reminding everyone where all the characters are at. Doctor Strange in particular seems to only be there to provide exposition. (Quick side note, the Eye of Agamotto is an Infinity Stone? I’m sorry, have Marvel Studios ever even so much as glanced at a Doctor Strange comic before?!)

Oh yes. After all my ranting over the years about what a racist piece of shit the Doctor Strange movie is and how I stubbornly refuse to watch it despite being a huge fan of the comics, you’re no doubt wondering what I thought of the Sorcerer Supreme considering this is the first time I’ve properly got to see him in action. He’s... fine, I guess. Benedict Cumberbatch was about as good as I expected him to be, given what he has to work with here. Aside from a bit near the end, they don’t go nearly as psychedelic or as imaginative with the magic as I would have liked them to. All Strange ever seemed to do was just use these glowing disc things or this energy whip. Also the Cloak of Levitation seems to have a mind of its own. I don’t get the purpose behind that at all. But do you know what the biggest problem is with Doctor Strange? The same problem as most of the other male characters. They all sound exactly the fucking same. This is something a few people on Tumblr have commented on before, and it’s really noticeable in this film. The dialogue is practically interchangeable to the point where characters like Strange, Iron Man and Star Lord start to just blur together. There’s no two ways around it. This is just bad writing.

The crappiness isn’t limited to the protagonists neither. No, the villain Thanos is just as shit, although that didn’t come as much of a surprise. He’s meant to be the supposed Big Bad of the MCU, and yet there’s been no buildup whatsoever. In these 19 Marvel movies, Thanos has only appeared twice, both in post credit scenes. We have no idea who the fuck he is or what he’s doing. So the Russos have to shove in a hackneyed backstory and motivation for the fucker, and good God is it bad. Like... insultingly bad. Marvel often like to brag about how they planned all of this from the beginning, but Infinity War proves otherwise. His whole plot doesn’t make any sense and was clearly just pulled out of some hack screenwriter’s nether regions, we don’t fully understand what’s driving him to do something so mind bogglingly daft in the first place, and any attempts to wring any emotion out of us and make us empathise with the prat just end up falling flat on their face. I know Marvel have always had a villain problem, but this is just embarrassing now.

And then there’s the ending. Holy fuck do I hate the ending! Marvel have done some bad shit before, but this has got to be the most insulting thing I think I’ve ever seen from them. Without giving too much away, critics and fans (aka idiots) have been using buzzwords like ‘shocking’ and ‘gamechanging’ to describe the ending, but that’s objectively bollocks. For one thing, the Russos have had ‘gamechanging’ moments in their movies before and they never seem to stick (think back to SHIELD being destroyed in Winter Soldier or Iron Man’s dubious morality in Civil War), but the big pisstake for me is that Marvel have already announced their next set of movies. So we know what happens at the end of Infinity War isn’t permanent... and yet they still expect us to be emotionally devastated by it. Fuck off!

I’ve said a few times in the past that Marvel need to take a break. I’m now going to go one further. Marvel need to stop making movies altogether.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe needs to end.

I’m sorry, but I’m just so bloody sick of this. I’m sick of these cut and paste movies with no thought or effort being put into them. I’m sick of Marvel’s cynical greed and utter contempt for their audience. I’m sick of fans and critics kissing their arses and saying that MCU movies are the best when they’re so clearly fucking not. Ever since Doctor Strange came out, I’ve come to the conclusion that nobody is actually watching these movies. They’re basically the cinematic equivalent of dangling your keys in front of a toddlers face. Just show a few pretty colours, some punch-ups and bad jokes, and that should keep the plebs quiet for a couple of hours. But if you were to actually engage your brain, these movies quickly fall apart. I mean just look at the sheer bloody number of news articles discussing what happened leading up to Infinity War and posing theories as to why certain characters behaved the way that they did in the movie. Shouldn’t that give just a little bit of a hint? if your story has become so stupid and convoluted that people have to read news articles and stuff to make any sense of the fucking thing, maybe you’re doing something wrong.

No. That’s it. I’m done. I’m not watching anymore of these bloody movies. Infinity War sucked donkey balls and I never want to see it or any other MCU movie ever again.

#avengers: infinity war #marvel cinematic universe #quill's quickies #no spoilers

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fuckyeahimbrown · 6 years ago

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Dying Inside (The war of grief)

by Deborah Schurman-Kauflin Ph.D.

I am sorry you have found your way to this article because more than likely, you are reading it because you are suffering. In an instant, your life changed forever. You heard the news that no one ever wants to hear, words so horrible that you can’t even process them. Maybe your child was killed. Perhaps your loved one was diagnosed with a terminal disease, or it could have been you who got the bad news of illness. Your heart may have been broken when the love of your life betrayed you. And let’s not forget the silent grief of a child who has been abused and withers inside. There are many horrors in this world, and you may be one of the wounded warriors who limp through life after your life was destroyed.

I have worked with families of murder victims and police for many years. I also spend time advocating for those who have incurable, painful illnesses. In all my years, I have seen so much suffering and witnessed the secret tears of those who life has left behind. This article is for those of you who know the pains of great misery and the reality of how the world treats you when you are down.

Anyone who has been through a real trauma knows how it impacts your life. Devastation surrounds you, and at the time you need help most, many times, you don’t get it. In fact for a large group, help never comes.

Instead of softened empathy, you’ll hear all kinds of platitudes of how life’s sucker punch will make you stronger. Others will say it is part of some big mysterious universal plan that you are not allowed to know about, and that you simply must accept it (get over it). Then some will say the trauma was a good thing to bring about change in your life. For those of you out there that have heard these words, you know exactly how it made you feel. This notion that having your heart ripped out can make you stronger is nonsense. Destruction weakens you. It is the nature of the beast. Pain and suffering do not fortify you. They act like an anchor dragging you further and further into a dark pit. At best, some days all you can do is survive.

The raw nature of true trauma goes much deeper than societies will allow. What I mean by that is those suffering indeed suffer alone. In our world, people are not interested in hearing about the horror stories of others’ lives unless the stories are packaged into neat one hour television shows. To say that modern society is shallow is terrible understatement. People have become quite psychopathic in their lack of empathy.

Truth is very ugly. Anyone who has lived through or is living through hell knows what a horrific event can do to you. It ruins who you once were, and you know you will never be the same again. When your life has suffered a fatal blow, there is no coming back from that. You can’t be who you used to be. That simply is not possible, and for people who surround you, such a notion is unacceptable. People want you to be the sister, the wife, the brother, the husband or whoever they once knew. But how can you be who you were before that horrible event? After and during trauma, you are damaged. You change inside which is difficult for others. This can result in abandonment by people you thought were your friends. So many times, a husband will leave a sick wife or vice versa. ‘Friends’ slowly migrate away. Thus the hurt individual gets a double whammy.

There are many theories about grief, and people are not shy about telling you how they think you should be coping. However, there is no guide book for how you must respond to tragedy. Having worked with parents of murdered children and advocating for those suffering from incurable illnesses, I have seen what the war of grief does to human beings. They become battered as if combat veterans. They take one ‘punch’ right after another while doing their best to stay standing in a world that just doesn’t care about them. People will say that they care, but when you look at their behavior, it tells a much different story.

Sufferers are told hope is frail but difficult to destroy. They are lectured about how they must ‘get over’ the tragedy because it weighs them down. This advice is particularly cruel to those who lost a loved one or those enduring a horrible illness. There is no getting over having your life shattered into little pieces. Reality doesn’t work that way. Sure it reads well in books and sounds good in classes, but real life is very different from the world of ideas. If you have endured such things, you won’t get over it. You can integrate it into who you are, but you won’t forget.

Society in general has become quite indifferent to suffering of others. We have been so desensitized by the world’s traumas that our fellow man has become an object to be ignored. Anyone who has had the misfortune of being diagnosed with a bad illness knows how the medical system treats those who are suffering. Beyond the misdiagnoses and incorrect labels, patients suffer almost every indignity. When doctors cannot figure out what ailment patients have, patients automatically get labeled as head cases. Imagine what that does to someone suffering from a painful incurable disease that has been undiagnosed. Or take the example of the mother whose daughter had been murdered and her case botched by officers who were overly anxious to go off the clock. As she cried for justice she was told that this is the way things are, and she needed to pick up a hobby to distract her. One therapist told her to pick up a musical instrument, and she could strum her pain away!

So many parents of murdered children or those who are sick have had ‘friends’ slowly slide away as if no one will notice their absence. The fact is such people don’t want to see what could happen to them. The suffering is an ugly reminder to everyone what can happen in life, and for the shallow, walking away is easy. Then they don’t have to see the ugliness and can walk through life with their blinders on. And it isn’t just friends who jump off the sinking ship. Family members scatter as well. These fair weather relatives slink away when the going gets tough, but should there be any improvement, they come trotting back as if nothing ever happened. Yet the person who was going through the trauma knows exactly what transpired and what their fickle friends and family really are. There is no forgetting that.

Life destroying trauma is not something that the sufferer can get over. It bores into their souls and creates a new worldview where people become the enemy because frankly, they are. Few truly understand them which leads to isolation and an increasing inability to relate. If people are kicked when they are down, the injury sticks.

I know this sounds so ominous. Real life is messy and complicated and many times cruel. How many times have you gone through something so unbelievably horrifying that you can’t understand how it could have happened? You become lost in grief, almost as if in a parallel universe where everything seems backwards. Nothing is right, and without fail, when you are at your lowest point, bad things keep happening.

However, you are not alone.

There are others like you out there. There are walking wounded all around you who have learned to keep silent about their suffering. The pain you feel can be lessened. I’m going to be honest with you and say that your pain will never fully go away. Your loss will always be there, but this doesn’t mean that you cannot have a life after a trauma. It won’t be the life you planned, and I know how painful that can be. Just getting out of bed can be the best you can do in a day. If you think that is not big deal, then look at it another way. If you got out of bed, consider a victory. You did something, and that can be a first step. However, it will not be easy to find a new way of living. There are many obstacles in your way. Yet just trying can help build your self esteem.

I met a woman who was the victim of two attempted sexual homicides. Yes, you read that correctly. She was the victim twice in her life. The first time she was in her late teens, an attacker broke into her home. He raped and beat her, leaving her for dead. She was crippled physically and emotionally from the attack. Almost twenty years later, she was attacked again. Raped and strangled and left for dead, she somehow managed to survive. She does volunteer work for victims when she can and has managed to find some happiness in her life by helping others. However, she was very clear to me that the pain of the attacks is with her every day. It is not something she forgets, and she is very angry with her family and the mental health profession.

Her family left her one by one as time went on. They uttered such phrases as ‘you are too bitter for me’ or ‘you need to move on’ when she was suffering from the long term physical effects from the attempted murders. Professionals were no better. Doctors told her she shouldn’t still be having such horrible headaches years later and that she should just get used to the pain that went along with her traumatic brain injury. They told her not even to ask for any pain medication because they weren’t going to give it to her. She went to a balance disorder specialist who was rated as being compassionate. He gave her one heart medication for her dizziness which didn’t work. When she went back, the doctor said he didn’t want to try anything else, and she should just learn to live with her condition. Doctors failed her and treated her like dirt.

Counselor after counselor dropped her when she wasn’t progressing the way they wanted. She didn’t fit neatly into a box, so they didn’t know what to do with her. The first therapist wanted her to take a nerf bat and hit the wall when she got angry. When this didn’t help her, the therapist suggested blowing bubbles to reconnect with her childhood. Needless to say, this didn’t do the trick. So off she went to counselor number two. Number two wanted the victim to explore how she played a part in causing the attacks. What did she do in her life that drew these killers to her? When she reacted badly to this, the therapist dismissed her saying that she couldn’t heal until she owned up to her role in the attacks!

Number three simply refused to take her on as a client because she was seen a trouble maker who had already been to two professionals. Number four wanted her to journal her feelings. She said that just upset her more, and the psychiatrist gave her heavy doses of antidepressants. This improved her mood slightly but did nothing to help her work through her grief. When that doctor had nothing more to offer, the victim kept moving to find someone to help. It took seven professionals before she found one who was sympathetic, didn’t suggest that she was at fault, and took the time to simply listen. The victim said the best thing anyone did for her was to listen. The bad advice just made her angry and did nothing to heal her.

What those who are on the outside looking in don’t understand is that trauma becomes a part of who you are and colors how you view life. There is no magic pill to make it go away. There is no one with an enchanted wand to set this right. It is on the shoulders of those suffering to make a decision to live. I know how this sounds, but it is true. You must decide that you want a life. It won’t be the life you imagined, but you can find something better than the misery you live in. Those who have been through a deep trauma understand that the happiness will always be tempered by a hint of sadness. Yet there can be something better for you. When you are in the depths of despair, it seems impossible. But if you try to find something that gives you joy, you can find yourself actually laughing and smiling. I know your heart has been battered, and you will always be guarded. This is part of who you are now.

I can’t say what will do the trick for you. Only you can find what can make you happy. All I know is that the best thing you can do is try to find something that you love to do. Try to find someone who is sympathetic who can help point out resources which can be more tailored to you. Someone who is suffering from your illness or someone who has lost a loved one may know a good therapist or group that can help you. Just the thought of reaching out can be traumatizing, yet taking control of your life by stepping out can be helpful.

Don’t give up. You can find your spirit again. Keep looking for something you can love. Only you can do that, and the good news is that you don’t need someone else to take that first step. You have the power to do that. Give yourself the gift of easing your pain by doing something just for you. And keep trying. Reward yourself for taking the baby steps because you deserve every reward.

#depression #social anxiety #grief #hopelessness #empty #sorrow #mental illness #loneliness #mental health #help #lost #dying inside

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thesffcorner · 7 years ago

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Avengers: Infinity War Review

Avengers: Infinity War is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest venture, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. It takes place 2 years after the events of Avengers Civil War and follows Thanos on his quest to gather all the infinity stones and destroy half of the universe.

As this is a film that has been 10 years in the making, with elements and threads from nearly every MCU film, there is a lot to talk about and most of it consist some kind of spoiler. I will go over general impressions in the first half and get into most substantial, plot related spoilers in the latter, but if you don’t want to know anything about this movie before seeing it, I suggest you come back to this article after you’ve already done so.

This is a difficult movie to talk about; it will definitely draw out a reaction but how positive or negative will hinge on how much you love event comics and Thanos as a character. I can’t say I liked it, but there wasn’t much that I thought was objectively wrong with it, in the way of say the Last Jedi. So let’s start first with the things I liked.

Nearly every character that’s in this movie gets a moment to shine, be it an action beat, a scene, or just a good one liner. At no point in the film did it feel like a character was underutilized or unnecessary and the Russos do a great job at juggling all the different personalities and plot-lines. Despite the sheer amount of people the action is clear, the film rarely feels like it drags and more or less uses all its players to their fullest potential, with several having a lot more room to breathe and play.

The plot as I said is pretty pedestrian; it’s just “Thanos wants the stones so he can destroy the world and the heroes want to stop him” which works for this type of story. It’s nothing to write home about and the twists come from the individual character plot-lines and while I didn’t love it, it was pretty unobtrusive and allowed for more character interaction which is always a positive in my opinion.

The action is also for the most part excellent, with the Russos making sure everyone gets at least one scene where the kick ass, including the villains. They also get pretty creative with the different powers in the film, especially the infinity stones. There are several downright amazing scenes that showcase the time, reality and soul gems, and the two characters who get to show off the most in terms of power are definitely Thor and Strange.

Speaking of, another thing I liked was that the characters that carried the plot and got the most screen time weren’t the ones I expected would. Tony is the only one who I knew would get a lot of screen time and does, but I actually really liked his story-line; it was probably one of the best the MCU has done so far. The Russos really like and understand Tony’s character, and his emotional conflict having to do with the fear of losing Earth and all his friends, his guilt over the Avengers dissolving, him returning back to paranoia after the dissolution and creating the nano-tech suit were all excellent. The ending was also incredibly powerful for Tony specifically and there is one scene that was so emotionally visceral, it actually unsettled me.

Thor was another character that got a lot of screen time and I’m still somewhat conflicted over his character. I loved Ragnarok and I think Waititi’s Thor was the best and most accurate one we’ve gotten so far. So I was really worried when I read an interview with Hemsworth which talked about how he at first didn’t like the direction his character was going in.

And at first I agreed with him; the beginning of the film especially felt like Marvel just hates Thor and all of his supporting characters and in a way completely negates the ending and the message of Ragnarok, because it makes everything that happens in that movie irrelevant so we could get this one. What I did like was that at least (unlike Taika) the Russos gave Thor a moment to grieve and come to terms with the all the horror that happened to him in these two films and and just be human. There is a pretty touching scene between him and Rocket which I really appreciated and their pairing was very entertaining.

Strange was another character that got to shine and I liked his dynamic with Tony, especially Strange giving up the stone to save Tony’s life (even if he had ulterior motives), after plainly saying he would save the stone over everyone.

And now for some stuff I didn’t like. I’ll start with the more minor things and build up to the two major problems that I had with this movie. ACTUAL SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT FOLKS.

Firstly, this is an event comic in movie form with all the good and bad that comes with it. It’s all action and spectacle and contains surprisingly little humanity, other than in the form of jokey jokes and one liners. The tone is grim and though the film doesn’t take itself too seriously it still pauses for grandiose speeches which absolutely kill the momentum dead. Combined with the amount of characters this means that every character that isn’t plot relevant would get one line, or one scene or mostly one joke and then they are out of the movie.

People like Nat and Cap, who have been veterans of the MCU get completely lost in the shuffle. Sure they get fight scenes, but they don’t get any kind of emotional backstory. Bucky, Sam and Rhodey might as well not be here for all they do, even if they do get some funny lines here and there. Bruce fares a bit better, at least being present in most of the film, the entirety of the Black Panther cast gets like, a scene and a half and let’s not even get into people like Pepper, Loki and Wong who literally get ejected out of the film after one scene.

Gamora, Thor and Tony, are the only characters who get any emotional substance to them; the rest aren’t even deigned a subplot beyond the minimum necessary requirement to tie them into the main plot. An especially egregious example of this are both Wanda and Vision and Peter and Gamora’s romances.

Both of these romances were set up in previous films, but while they had time to slowly develop, here they need to be at Earth-shattering, I-need-you-to-kill-me-or-the-world-ends levels. This is less bad with Peter and Gamora because we’ve had more time with both characters and two whole movies to develop them, but Vision and Wanda only started really interacting in Civil War, and now they are at the stage where they are promised to each other? I also didn’t like that both romances had the same resolution; in case things go wrong Gamora and Vision ask to be killed, the only person who can do it is Peter or Wanda and we get a dramatic scene where exactly that happens only for Thanos to swoop in with one of the stones and change the outcome. Diminishing returns, is all I’m saying.

Wanda’s character had nothing to it beyond being worried and in love with Vision, but Peter… oh poor Peter.

First he gets into a stupid pissing contest with Thor about who is manlier which was just the most inane, stupid thing, then he does the exact same with Tony, and then (because the film needs him too) completely loses his mind about Gamora, and attacks Thanos, allowing him to steal the time gem and escape. Look, Peter was never the smartest person, and he does have an insecure, competitive, peacocking streak, but he was never an idiot like this film makes him out to be! Honestly all the Guardians are shafted; Mantis and Drax are barely in the film, Groot gets a single scene of cool, Rocket, while funny is relegated to being Thor’s sidekick/psychiatrist and Peter is turned into an idiot!

And now we get to Gamora. Poor Gamora, this movie did her dirty. Just a reminder, Gamora is one of the most skilled and bad-ass assassins in the galaxy, she is notorious and infamous in the Guardians films. Her entire plot in vol 2 was coming to terms not just with the abuse that Thanos inflicted on her as a child, but also the abuse she was complicit in with the other children, specifically Nebula who she was actually close to. The film ends with them starting to come to terms with this, and forgiving each other, but not Thanos who doesn’t deserve their forgiveness.

But then in this movie, she gets fooled into thinking she killed Thanos, gets kidnapped by Thanos, leads him to the soul stone and gets unceremoniously killed as Thanos’ sacrifice to get the stone. And all the time, she gets emotionally blackmailed and gas-lit by Thanos who keeps calling her his daughter, saying he wants to see her on Titan’s throne, how he sacrificed his crazy ass mission to save her once on her home-planet and choses her as the one thing in the universe he loves but has to trade to get the soul gem. WHAT?

Are we supposed to feel bad about Thanos? Thanos, the sociopathic, sadistic, torturous, unambiguous villain, who by that point in the film has killed the entirety of Asgard, including Loki and Heimdal, and the Grandmaster and the entirety of Knowhere? I absolutely hated the implication that I should feel sad because Gamora was wrong and he did love her. Not only does it badly undercut the message of vol 2 which is abuse is real and has lasting effects, but the movie wants us to on some level side with Thanos and think that Gamora really was ungrateful, since he obviously loved her and she betrayed him. They even give her this stupid speech about how the universe is punishing him by demanding he sacrificed something he loved since he doesn’t love anything, which was so over the top and drawn out and made Gamora sound like an idiot! It made me want to throw things at the screen.

I don’t need or want complexity and sympathetic traits given to a villain that has been nothing but a sheer force of evil and destruction thus far. It would have been so much better to just go the Galactus route with Thanos and make him just an unstoppable chaotic neutral force, rather than some deluded mad genius. I’m sorry, but am I supposed to sympathize with a villain literary referred to as the Mad Titan, whose grand master plan hinges on him believing the overpopulation and over-consumption myth so hard that he wants to destroy half the universe to remedy it? This is the better story than him trying to impress Death that Marvel came up with?

Even if overpopulation wasn’t a myth (which it is) what happens when living beings once again reach the status that they have now? He would have to snap his fingers every 10 000 years or so just to keep the status quo. It’s ridiculously stupid and infuriating and the film treats his plan like it actually has some merit and he’s somehow a mad genius who just goes about it the wrong way. I really didn’t need a 10 min scene of him mourning how he had to kill Gamora to get the stone that lets him DESTROY HALF THE UNIVERSE, complete with sad music and a flashback to baby Gamora asking him what kind of price he paid for his own insane plans. We could have spent that time giving Cap something to do, like maybe acknowledging that Tony, his best friend is lost in space and the world is ending.

The Russos love Thanos, he’s clearly their baby but I hated him. He took time away from the heroes that I wanted to watch and didn’t bring anything to the table but melodrama that was completely unfounded. It was also additionally frustrating because he a) is so much more powerful than any of the heroes combined and b) we know he gets all the infinity stones by the end of the film. So the question isn’t how the heroes will win, but how long will they last against him. The ending also undercuts itself, because the heroes don’t win; the glove self-destructs after Thanos uses it, meaning it would have done that regardless of if Thanos met any resistance while acquiring the stones, meaning this whole 2 and a half hour film was pointless!

The other part of the ending was shocking, but it’s not meaningful, because we know all those characters aren’t dead. We know we will get a Dr Strange 2, Black Panther 2 and Guardians 3, and we know Avengers Infinity part 2 comes out next summer so we know they are still somehow alive. My guess is they are all trapped inside the soul stone, since only the glove got destroyed at the end. Sidenote, aren’t Tony and Nebula still on Titan? So can’t they just like… sneak behind Thanos and stab him now that he’s wounded and can’t use the stones anymore?

This was a frustrating movie to watch and even more frustrating to talk about. There were things I liked, like some of the characters and humor, but for the most part I thought it was overblown, melodramatic and focused too much on the one character I cared least about. I am curious about part 2, but honestly? I feel the same about this movie as I do about event comics; who TF is Thanos and can he get out of my Guardians ongoing so I can return to reading about the characters I actually like and care about.

#avengers infinity war #film review #avengers infinity war review #moni talks

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ruindil · 7 years ago

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I hope you’re as Pro-Jedi as much as I am.

Oh Force, you have no idea. I’m completely 1000% PRO-JEDI. (anyone who isn’t might want to skip this post, because I have a lot of feelings about Star Wars and the Jedi Order)

Warning: long, long meta ahead :)

I’m one of those fans who grew up during the prequel era. So when I first watched Star Wars, I got to enjoy both the Original and Prequel Trilogies at the same time. And I fell in love with it. I loved the simplicity and sincerity of the OT, but the nuanced complexity and tragedy of the PT captivated me. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. So predictably, I was enamoured by the most tragic character, Obi-Wan. His sense of duty and how he always tried so hard and remained bafflingly kind despite all the horrible things that happened to him. It was so lovely and heartbreaking to watch how he tried and tried and yet he still lost everything but didn’t hate the galaxy for it. And the more you love and understand Obi-Wan’s character, the more you realise that what makes him such a great person is that he is quintessentially a Jedi.

Unfortunately being Pro-Jedi is a very unpopular stance among Star Wars fans. I have met so many fans who believe that the Jedi Order was some sort of emotionally-stunted, oppressive cult that deserved to be exterminated, and to be very honest, it breaks my heart every time I hear someone say that. Because it’s not true. Not in the slightest. Obviously, these people don’t understand what they’re saying. There’s lots of evidence in EU material.

Allow yourself to feel the emotions, then let them go.

- Jedi Apprentice #17: The Only Witness

First case in point. This is what the Jedi mean when they say ‘there is no emotion, there is peace’. (There’s also the Old Jedi Code, but that’s a whole other story) The Jedi philosophy isn’t about shoving down your emotions or suppressing it, it’s about acknowledging it, accepting it, feeling it. And then releasing those emotions and letting go.

And the code isn’t asking a person to constantly not feel. It’s about releasing negative emotions or emotions that could distract you in a particular moment. (Let’s say you’re sparring and you can tell you’re winning and you start feeling all excited. That same excitement, if not released, could very well cause you to act hastily and allow your opponent to best you.)

Then we have Anakin Skywalker. A lot of people blame the Order for Anakin’s fall, saying that the Jedi didn’t understand Anakin because he was emotional and they didn’t allow him to be with Padme. And here’s what I have to say to them: no matter what kind of training the other Jedi initiates received, all children are prone to feeling their emotions very deeply. Just look at Obi-Wan, that poor boy was so obsessed with being perfect, yet he still struggled with his temper and his fear and anger well through his childhood.

Yoda had always told him that anger and fear drove him too hard, that if he didn’t learn to control them, they would lead him down a path he didn’t want to follow.

“Befriend them, you should,” Yoda had advised. “Look them in the eye without blinking. Use faults as your teachers, you should. Then rule you, they will not. Rule them, you shall.”

Yoda’s wisdom was engraved in his heart.

- Jedi Apprentice #1: The Rising Force

Fear and anger are the same things Anakin and Obi-Wan were criticised for. The difference, I think, is in their response to the rebuke. Anakin got angry about it, and Palpatine fueled this by filling his head with the idea that because he feels all this, he is special. Palpatine is preaching exactly what anti-Jedi fans are saying: that the Jedi are the bad guys because they think emotions are bad.

Obi-Wan takes a very different approach to the rebuke, he acknowledges his weakness and listens. Contrary to what Palpatine tells Anakin, the Jedi do not shun emotions. Yoda clearly says that ‘befriend them, you should’ , Jedi are supposed to be familiar with their emotions and accept them, but they must be able to control them and if they need to, let them go.

Anakin’s relationship with Padme was not bad in and of itself. The trouble came because Anakin could not draw the line between loving and possessing. Marriage is against the Jedi Code not because Jedi believe love is evil or anything. It’s more because the Jedi recognise that it can be difficult to avoid attachment when you’re in such a committed romantic relationship, and they understand that it could cause a conflict between vows to the Order and vows of marriage. The rule isn’t there to make life difficult or painful for the Jedi. It’s there to protect them from attachment. They can still feel what they feel, but they can only love from afar.

In the end, attachment is the final and only enemy of the Jedi. Attachment to a person, to emotions, that’s what the Jedi are against. They are allowed to love, allowed to feel, but they aren’t allowed to possess. And that there is the important difference. Anakin loved Padme, no one doubted it, but when faced with the thought of losing her, he could not let go.

And that’s not to say that the other Jedi did not face the same pain as Anakin. They may not have had romantic partners, but they had family. This is another aspect of the Order that I adore, and Obi-Wan says so himself.

I’ve lived my life in the structure of the Jedi Order. Yes, it was an organization with a goal- but it was also a family. I said it myself: Anakin was my brother. I had many brothers and sisters. And fathers and mothers. And even a strange little green uncle. I don’t have that home now. I don’t have that family. Almost every friend I’ve ever had is dead.

- Kenobi, John Jackson Miller

Each lineage was family, initiate clans and crechemates are family. Each Master and Padawan pair was family. They loved each other, but they had to learn to let go.

Okay, final point. Anakin was prophesied to bring balance to the Force. What exactly does that mean? We don’t get a clear answer, but we can speculate. This comic is from a recent Darth Vader comic, and it is about how the Sith obtain red kyber crystals.

When I first read this I thought it was an excellent way to mirror the Sith’s relationship with the Force. The Jedi believe in serving the Force, in surrendering to its will. The Sith use the Force for power. (This point can be quite controversial, because domination and power is commonly the narrative of Western stories whereas servitude and surrender is seen more in Eastern fables and such.)

Anyway, I like to think of the Sith as a corruption in the Force. They are like poison or a virus. The same way they make kyber crystals bleed, they pour their anger and hate into the Force and make the Force bleed. It is an anomaly and an unnatural state of being for the crystals and for the Force. And that’s because of the kind negative emotions (anger, hate) and negative energy they are emanating. The Force becomes corrupted by all the negative energy and that corruption manifests itself as the Dark Side. So by this theory, bringing balance to the Force isn’t about two Sith and two Jedi (this is probably the stupidest theory) nor is it about Gray Jedi (I have very strong feelings against the very notion of a Gray Jedi. It’s just utter nonsense.). Bringing balance is about removing the virus and corruption in the Force. It is about destroying the Sith.

So, The Last Jedi is coming out soon-ish, and I have to say I’ll be very disappointed if they chose to go with the Gray Jedi or the extinction of the Jedi route. I know it’s what a lot of fans want, but it isn’t what Star Wars has been about. To end off, let’s have a gorgeous quote from our favourite Jedi.

“We are not saints, but seekers,” Obi-Wan said, repeating a Jedi saying.

- Jedi Apprentice #2: The Dark Rival

The Jedi do not think they’re perfect, but they certainly always do their best. And I am so sick of this fandom for constantly criticising them and blaming them.

#sw meta #jedi order #pro jedi #pro jedi order #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #sw #jedi order appreciation

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